


Brace and Break

by Cowboy_Sneep_Dip



Series: A Stare Like Yours [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: (slaps fic) you can fit so much angst in this baby, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Minor Violence, Panic Attacks, Post-Concussion Syndrome, Running Away, Suicidal Thoughts, Underage Drinking, hoo buddy strap yourselves in cause i laid it on pretty thick with this one, its so much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 13:05:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 32,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15606927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cowboy_Sneep_Dip/pseuds/Cowboy_Sneep_Dip
Summary: No one really knew anything about Severa. No friends, no siblings, no one knew her parents. No one even knew where she lived. It was as if she simply manifested on the school steps one morning, some bizarre and spiteful love-child of Judd Nelson circa 1985 and a tank of piranha.And now, for some reason, she couldn’t get out of Lucina’s head.-Or: Lucina Adopts a Stray Dog





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Been awhile, huh? My productivity has been a lil wonky, so have an entirely finished Lucisev fic.
> 
> Gonna double down here and be clear about the warnings that this fic does have a decent amount of...er, heavy themes and content, so bear that in mind. Hope you enjoy!

Lucina wrings her hands nervously. She’s not… _really_ in trouble. Well, not per se. She didn’t do anything. Though, she supposes, that’s the issue - inaction rather than action. She shifts in her seat and sets her backpack in her lap. She begins to sift through her papers, trying but knowing it’ll be impossible to find the student handbook. She can’t remember the attendance policy, but…third strike means something. She looks up.

Across the waiting room from her is another student, with a permanent scowl plastered beneath her scarlet bangs. She picks at the frayed cuff of her leather jacket. She’s sitting with her legs spread, giving Lucina an embarrassing eyeful of her black tights. Lucina blushes and averts her gaze.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” the girl says flatly.

Lucina coughs.

She knows who Severa is, of course. Everyone in the school knew Severa Tiamo – brooding, mysterious, snappy, stylish as all hell, and above all, a raging bitch. Lucina had been thankful to have never had a run-in with her in the past, even if they did share sixth period history class, but now there was nothing between them but the dead stillness of the principal’s office waiting room. Dust drifts through the air between them, illuminated by shafts of yellow light cast through the mottled window by the mid-afternoon sun. Severa crosses her arms over her chest and digs a heavy leather combat boot into the carpet.

She doesn’t have any bags with her, making Lucina guess she’s not coming from class. In fact, all she has is a bloody paper towel she’s wrapping and unwrapping around her split knuckles, dabbing at the wounds. A dark bruise is slowly forming under her cheek. Lucina can guess why _she’s_ here, at least.

“Miss Lowell?” a soft, matronly voice emanates from the principal’s office. Severa doesn’t even look up as Lucina marches past her, into the chamber of her judgement.

Lucina’s face burns as she sinks into the chair across from the principal. She’s a stern, slender woman with straight hair that matches the ornate walnut desk. She’s pecking at the keys of her laptop, letting Lucina stew in her guilt a bit.

“The third time this month, Lucina?”

“Sorry, Ms. Miriel.”

The principal sighs and looks up from her computer. “Sorry? Is that all you have to say for yourself?”

Lucina shrugs. “I…I don’t know what happened.”

“I just don’t understand you, Lucina. Star athlete, top of your class in some areas, and yet in others, you’re barely scraping by. You cut class only to show up and do just fine on exams. I can’t decide if I want all of my students to be like you, or none of them.”

Lucina’s cheeks burn. She isn’t sure if it’s a compliment, and she isn’t sure if that would be worse. “Sorry.”

“I don’t know how we, as educators, have failed you, Miss Lowell. I wish I could help you, but the rules are the rules. This has been your third skipped class this month. I have no choice but to assign you one week of suspension.”

Lucina’s stomach turns. Okay. Not…awful. She’d be read the riot act by her parents, but that’s fine. She can still do her schoolwork, and maybe even do _well_ with less distractions. “I understand,” she says solemnly.

Ms. Miriel gestures towards the door. “I’ll call your parents to have someone pick you up.”

Lucina nods and trudges out the door, downcast. She knew this was inevitable – her spotty attendance and wildly fluctuating grades couldn’t be propped up by athletics and teacher favoritism forever. Sooner or later, it’d bite her. And it seemed like sooner was the case. She sits back down in her chair.

“Miss Tiamo?”

Severa sighs wearily, scowls, and kicks her legs out to haul herself out of her chair, making the maximum possible show of it. There are rips across the sides of her tights, and for a moment Lucina wonders if they’re for style or from a fight. They certainly could be either. Severa slams the door to the principal’s office behind her.

Muffled voices come through the door – clearly their conversation is heated, though Lucina can’t make out any particular words. Something about ‘disappointment’ and ‘disgrace’. Lucina scoots her chair closer, trying to listen in. A snatch of a sentence slips through the door.

“You’re lucky he’s not pressing any charges.”

Then more angry, obfuscated voices. Lucina shrugs and digs through her backpack. She withdraws a notebook and begins tracing out a rough schedule for her week. Suspension meant she’d be home, and home alone – five full, uninterrupted days. Now that the initial shock was wearing off, she was almost excited.

She devoted most of the daily schedules to history and language arts – the classes she needed to least edge in, but her favorites. Some time was allotted for her chem studies. A tiny sliver for math, just a half an hour a day. And then, her favorite – every morning, from six to seven, a workout. She smiles. A custom schedule, letting her learn at her own pace. Just like she wanted.

Severa bolts out of the principal’s office in a huff, slamming the door behind her. Ms. Miriel is hot on her tail, yanking the door open to call after her. “I’m calling Father Libra to come pick you up. You can wait outside until then.”

Severa scowls and ignores her, stomping towards the exit.

Ms. Miriel bows her head slightly. “Sorry for the delay, Lucina. Your father will be here to pick you up shortly. You can wait outside…” she lifts her head towards the sound of a delinquent student banging on lockers as she walks through the halls. “Or perhaps you can wait here.”

 

-

 

Lucina prefers the outdoors, anyway. She leans back against the cold metal bench and stares out at the parking lot, and the sport fields beyond, and then finally, out into the treeline marking the end of the school’s property. How she would prefer to be out there than stuck inside those stuffy classrooms all day. Even now she feels more relaxed in the open air. If only she could smell it.

She wrinkles her nose. “I don’t think you’re allowed to smoke on school property.”

Severa shakes out a match, drops it, and grinds it into the gravel beneath her heel. She ignores Lucina, instead opting to take a drag from her cigarette and exhale a plume of pungent menthol.

Lucina coughs loudly, mostly to make a point.

Severa crosses her legs and leans her head back, letting her long red twintails drape over the back of the bench. “If you have a problem with it, you’re welcome to pick another bench.”

Lucina looks around. There was only one other bench, on the far side of the parking lot. She supposes she can survive. The sun crawls slowly across the sky, beginning its downward trek towards the horizon. It’s spring, technically, but the air still has the sharp bite of winter. The ground still frosts over in the mornings, and only the hardiest trees have begun to sprout.

“I got a week,” Lucina says, trying again. “How about you?”

“Two.” Severa doesn’t even look at her.

Lucina still can’t decide if she’s cool or an asshole. If she was playing aloof, she was committed to the act. But, given the rumors that circulated about her, it was more likely that she was just the worst person who ever lived. Though the poetry of the leather-clad bad-girl smoking a cigarette and casually shrugging off her two-week suspension was undeniable.

An asshole? Undoubtedly. But at the same time, weirdly…fascinating? Lucina shakes her head and turns back to her bag. She wraps her arms around it and rests her chin on it, gazing out at the nearly-empty parking lot.

“Ms. Miriel said Father Libra is picking you up?” Lucina asks, not breaking eye contact with a lamppost across the way. “Not your parents?”

“I volunteer at the orphanage after school,” Severa uncrosses her legs and leans forward. “My…my mom works late so…” she shrugs.

“I thought I’ve seen you around there,” Lucina says carefully. “You never struck me as much of the volunteer type. Especially towards kids.” Bad-girl with a heart of gold? Just who _was_ this girl?

“Yeah, well…” Severa exhales another puff of smoke. “Looks good on college applications, y’know?”

She didn’t strike Lucina as the college-going type, either.

“College? Where were you thinking about going?”

Severa shrugs and takes another drag. “Anywhere’s better than this.”

Lucina frowns. She didn’t think Ylisstol was so bad. Small, quaint, rural. Quiet. Maybe someone like Severa would fare better in the big city. She loosens and tightens the straps on her backpack. So much for small talk. Its quiet for some time, the only sound the creak of metal in the wind and the occasional throat-clear from Severa. Lucina watches the empty blue sky with disinterest.

A rumble of tires across gravel disrupts her reverie. A pale blue hatchback motors across the parking lot, weaving between parking lanes and towards the school’s main entrance. Lucina doesn’t recognize it, so it must be Severa’s ride. The car pulls up to the curb at the far end of the entrance and Severa gets up and crosses to it.

“See you…” Lucina says as she passes, well aware that she’s being ignore. “Around…I guess.”

Rather than Father Libra, a woman gets out of the car – a nun, by Lucina’s best guess. She’s not religious and hasn’t once been to church, but she’s seen movies, so she makes an educated guess.

The nun gestures at Severa, who gestures back. Again, Lucina can’t make out what they’re saying, but from Severa’s expression and the tone of their gestures, it’s not good. The nun snatches the cigarette out of Severa’s fingers and drops it to the road. As she steps on it, Severa’s face twists. She must say something nasty, since the next moment the nun slaps her.

Lucina winces. It can’t possibly reflect well on the orphanage if their employees are caught getting into fights and smoking. Severa climbs into the passenger seat with something like seething resignation on her face.

As the car motors past, Lucina can see Severa’s forehead pressed against the window. She’s slumped against the door, scowling like a petulant child. For a brief second, they make eye contact. And then she’s gone, vanished in a cloud of dust and gravel behind the beat-up car.

Lucina leans back and tries to relax. Her father shows up a few minutes later in his stylish white sedan. She grimaces at the sight, dreading the confrontation that will happen once she sits down.

It’s worse than she fears. He sighs. Not angry, but disappointed. The classic spear through the heart of teenagers everywhere.

“I just don’t understand,” he says, keeping his eyes on the road. “What happened? I can’t imagine you were just playing hooky.”

Lucina fiddles with the door locks, unlocking. Locking. Unlocking. Locking. Her eyes glaze, unfocused as the scenery whizzes by. “I don’t know.”

It’s a lie. She knows exactly what happened, but she doesn’t quite feel comfortable explaining to her father that she spent the entirety of chemistry in the bathroom, trying to stop her hands from shaking. She hated some of her classes, but she hated the ones with numbers and formulas most of all. She could handle stories, which made history and language arts a breeze. But math got her, chem got her, and physics loomed on her horizon like an ominous specter, a vision of next semester’s inevitable failures.

She just couldn’t keep any of it straight. None of the formulas stuck in her brain, none of the numbers locked into the places they should have. She lagged behind, and by the time she managed to understand a question, the entire class had moved on. She would get called on to answer a problem, and it would take five minutes of anxious concentration for her to even realize what she was being asked.

It made her feel stupid, and it made her feel embarrassed. She had aced her advanced placement English and history exams. She had somehow garnered a reputation for being a genius, and it made her floundering all the more pronounced. Kids would laugh when she said something wrong, or whisper when she’d ask the teacher to repeat a simple concept. She hated it.

“You okay, honey? You look upset.”

“It’s…okay,” she says at last, realizing she has been spacing out for the better part of ten minutes. “Just tired.”

“Is that why you skipped class?”

Lucina nods and slumps her head against the window. “Sorry. It just slipped my mind, I guess.”

Her father sighs again.

 

-

 

“A week’s suspension?” Lucina’s mother asks, surprised. “Just for skipping classes?”

“It’s a three-strike system,” explains the boy sitting across from Lucina. Her brother is younger by a year, and his feathery white hair takes after his mother’s. “First skip is a verbal warning. Second is a call home. Third is suspension.”

“Seems a little harsh,” she remarks. “Can you pass the salt, dear?”

Lucina’s resting her elbow on the dinner table, her palm cupping her face. She pokes at her food idly with a fork. She lets her eyes drift around the table.

Clockwise: Robin, her mother. Long white hair, thin-rimmed glasses, mid-thirties, consultant. Often busy with her work, but always down for a good time when the opportunity presents itself. Then Chrom, her father. Hair that matches Lucina’s, works for the city government doing something or other (contracting work? He has an office at city hall but spends most of the days driving around). Easygoing and kind, but strict when occasion demands. Morgan, her brother: one year younger, putting him at sixteen. The foil to Lucina’s all-or-nothing approach to schoolwork, he’s been coasting steady on a wave of B-minuses ever since elementary school. Good enough for the folks, but not enough that it requires too much work to upkeep. A dumbass, in Lucina’s own words.

The four of them make a point to eat together every night, no matter what’s going on in their lives (barring extenuating circumstances, of course). Between classes, clubs, sports teams, hobbies, jobs, friends, and all the other trappings of modern suburban life, this was the one constant they strove for. Some days it was the only times they saw each other all day.

And so, when Chrom practically drags Lucina through the door by the nape of her neck…

“Seems fair to me,” Chrom remarks, obeying his wife’s request. “She’s received plenty of warnings.”

“I don’t remember ever getting a call from the school,” Robin frowns. “Are you sure they aren’t being overly harsh?”

“I got the call,” Chrom says. “Remember? Two weeks ago?”

Robin frowns and scratches her head. “Two weeks ago? No, I’m sure I would have remembered if it was that recent.”

“Mom, no offense, but you don’t even remember what you had for breakfast,” Morgan says dryly. “They’ve called us like five times for Luci. I’m amazed that she’s gotten away with it for this long.”

“You make it sound like she’s up to something,” Robin smirks.

Morgan shrugs. “I dunno! All I know is, _I_ certainly couldn’t get away with skipping classes! You’d have my ass just for being late!”

“Language, Morgan,” Chrom chastises his son. “Besides, I think we all know Lucina is much more…well-behaved than you.”

“I’m right here, dad,” Lucina speaks up for the first time. She can certainly defend herself from her little brother’s insipid remarks.

“Not that we’d have any way of knowing,” Robin says. “You’ve been quiet as a mouse, and you’ve hardly touched your food.”

“I’m not hungry,” Lucina offers a weak excuse.

“Is something bothering you?” Robin asks, genuinely concerned. “Are you feeling alright?” She leans across the table to press a hand to Lucina’s forehead. The girl understandably scoots back.

“Mom, I’m fine!” she says. “I just have a lot on my mind.”

“Yeah, cut her some slack,” Morgan chimes in. “It’s not like it’s every day someone in our house gets suspended.”

Lucina kicks him under the table and he cackles.

“Sorry!” he says through his laughter. “I’m honestly still shocked. You? Suspended?!” he laughs again.

“I’m not hungry,” Lucina says again, standing up and pushing her chair in.

“Aw, c’mon, Luci! I was just teasing!” Morgan’s voice chases after her as she heads up the stairs to her room.

She closes the door behind her and lets out a sigh. Finally home. She flops onto her bed and rolls onto her back.

It had been…a weird day, to say the least. She sits up and begins to root around in her bookcase headboard, looking for…aha! She finds a half-empty bottle of aspirin and digs her water bottle out of her backpack. Two little white pills and a swig of stale, warm water isn’t much for dinner, but she could make do. Worst case scenario, she could snag something from the freezer later.

She lays cracks the window, lays in bed, and closes her eyes. It had been a long day. Between her third-period panic attack, her run-in with the resident delinquent, and being forbidden from going to track practice, she felt like her entire day was off. It’s still light enough outside to go for a run, but her head aches and her stomach is empty and passing out on the side of the road would possibly be the worst way to end the day. So instead she lays in bed, relishing the cool breeze and the silence. It sounds like spring outside – chirping of birds, rustling branches, wind. It relaxes her. Thank god it was Friday – if nothing else, the weekend would help clear her mind.

Maybe she could convince Morgan to go hiking with her tomorrow. No, he had plans with Nah, she thinks. Maybe dad would be free. Her thoughts scatter like leaves against a breeze, drifting lazily from one topic to the next, from plans for the weekend to her homework to the TV series she still needs to watch but Cynthia insists is the _greatest_ …

And yet her thoughts keep settling on Severa, her eyes as the two looked at each other, separated by the thin glass of the car window as she drove away. Her eyes were dark, piercing, angry. But there was something else there, too. It wasn’t pain, or sadness, or anything so poetic and cliched and readable. No, Lucina couldn’t place it that easily.

Emptiness, maybe.

Whatever it was made Lucina’s chest turn. How could she pity this girl? She knew exactly three facts about her – she got in trouble for getting into a fistfight during gym class. She worked at the orphanage. She was a smoker.

Anything beyond that was hearsay. Lucina made a point never to listen to gossip, but the occasional snippets bleed through. Severa carries a knife and once stabbed someone. Severa’s part of a gang (this one Lucina laughed aloud at when she heard). The only reason she hasn’t been expelled is because her folks are in good with school administration. She was gay – that one was persistent for obvious enough reasons, and her penchant for leather and flannel certainly did little to dispel that. Those rumors were fine, though they gave way to the more insidious ones – she’s dating an adult, she has sex for money, and so on; a whole litany of wildly inappropriate and vaguely sexist rumors that Lucina made a point of shutting down whenever she heard them.

It’s not that she had any interest in defending Severa, whom she didn’t actually know – it’s just that she had no desire to begin hearing those rumors about _herself_ when people inevitably discovered her own predilections.

But again, that’s all hearsay. No one really knew anything about her. No friends, no siblings, no one knew her parents. No one even knew where she lived. It was as if she simply manifested on the school steps one morning, some bizarre and spiteful love-child of Judd Nelson circa 1985 and a tank of piranha.

And now, for some reason, she couldn’t get out of Lucina’s head.

Maybe a week away from school to clear her head would be a good thing. She certainly had enough trouble with her classes as it was, and this distraction piled on top would do her no good at all.


	2. Chapter 2

“Severa, Severa, Severa…” a high, soft voice tsks at her. She finds herself, for the second time in less than an hour, sitting across a desk from someone about to rip into her for her behavior. At least this time she had an ice pack, which was currently pressed against her cheek. “What are we going to do with you?” the voice continued.

She bowed her head slightly, admitting deference. Father Libra was a kind and gentle soul, and Severa could never bring herself to be rude or angry towards him. It worked out, since he never seemed to provoke her the same way the sisters did.

“What happened this time?”

“I got into a fight,” Severa says softly. There’s a slight bite of disdain in her voice, though it seems more from the impatience of repeating her story _again_.

“Why?”

“I…don’t even remember,” Severa admits. “It wasn’t important.”

“Two weeks of suspension?”

Severa nods guiltily. She shifts in her chair, and as she does her knuckles sting. The bleeding has stopped but they’re still raw and tender. “I’m sorry.”

Libra sighs. “Severa…” He purses his lips and runs a hand through his long blonde hair. “I don’t know what we’re going to do with you. Sister Maria is furious, you know.”

“I know.”

“Do you remember what she said last time?”

Severa winces as she peels the ice pack from her face. “That you were going to send me to juvie.”

Libra nods somberly. “She insists that you’re nothing but trouble.” When Severa doesn’t respond, he prompts her. “Do you agree with her?”

Severa nods almost imperceptibly.

Libra sighs. “Don’t worry. I have no plans of sending you to a juvenile detention center. But, unfortunately, we cannot let wrongful deeds go unpunished. For the durations of your suspension, you are on cleaning duties. Start with the rectory tomorrow morning after breakfast.”

“Okay.”

“You are dismissed.”

Severa gets up to leave Father Libra’s office and is stopped just as she touches the doorknob.

“Severa?”

She looked back at him.

“Please, just…behave tonight.”

Severa trudges through the halls with deliberate resignation. Her glower wards off interactions from anyone she passes, keeping her brief trek to her room both quiet and uneventful. She shuts the door behind herself and locks it, leaning back against it and trying to steady her trembling breath.

She clenches her hand into a fist and slams it backwards, thumping the door with frustration. Cleaning duties? For _two weeks?_ Including the weekends! She seethes and thumps the door again before resting against it and sliding down to a sitting position.

With eyes half-lidded with disinterest, she surveys her room. It’s a short, squarish room with barely enough space to fit her bed and her desk. The desk is pushed against the far wall, against a window that overlooks the courtyard. The bed to her left is old and weathered. She’d use the term ‘ratty’, but lived-in might be more appropriate. The knit throw blanket was patterned with bright colors and shapes, probably more suited for a child than a seventeen-year-old girl. It wasn’t a surprise, really – she was the oldest child here by nearly a decade.

She closes her eyes and leans back against the door. Two weeks’ suspension meant two weeks _here_.

There were almost no decorations on the walls save a corkboard tacked up over the bed, to which was pinned exactly three things – a receipt, a handwritten note with a phone number scrawled across it (she couldn’t remember what the number was or who told her to call it), and a single Hallmark card with pink flowers printed on the front.

Severa pushes herself to her feet and kicks off her boots before laying down in bed and curling up, tucking her face into her knees. Two weeks.

 

 

After a while, the room dims. The sun has sunk into dusky twilight, and Severa blinks herself back to wakefulness. She rubs her eyes and sits down at her desk. She slides open the drawer and fishes a pack of cigarettes out from the mess of trash within. She pats her side and realizes she had hung her jacket on the doorknob. She grabs a pack of matches from the pocket and crosses the room again to slide the window open. It sticks, as usual – the glass is pale and frosted, and the frame swells in the summer, making it tough to dislodge at times. Even now, in spring, it takes a bit of a whack to get it moving. She obliges.

She strikes a match, lights her cigarette, shakes the match, and drops it into a metal wastebin by the desk. Her nightly ritual reaches its climax.

She crawls onto her desk and lays on top of it, leaning her head out the window. She can see the courtyard, four stories below – a plaza of stone and grass and hedging. The black metal lampposts have been turned on for the night, and in their hazy glow she can see figures crossing to and fro. She watches with muted disinterest. A pair of sisters crossing to the chapel, a staff cleric taking a child to the dormitories. She exhales a cloud of smoke.

She isn’t allowed to smoke in the rooms. Well, she isn’t allowed to smoke at all, legally speaking. She had already been reamed out several times for her clothes, her room, and her things smelling like menthol, so she developed this new system. The smoke dissipated into the night air. She felt dizzy, looking at the ground far below.

It seemed so close. She could almost reach out and touch it. She taps out ashes on the windowsill and watches them drift down like glowing orange snowflakes.

“Severa!” a voice from the courtyard calls up to her, shaking her from her thoughts. “Are you smoking again?”

“No, Sister Anna!” Severa lies, playfully. She likes Sister Anna. Unlike many of the sisters, she seems to have a goddamned sense of humor. She was young, kind, and a far cry from the bitter severity of some of the older clergy.

“What’s that in your hand, then?”

Severa coughs. “Uh, my pen!”

“Why are you leaning out the window?”

“Nice night, isn’t it?” Severa tries to sound friendly. Anna laughs.

“You know Sister Maria will have you cleaning bathrooms for a week!”

Severa shrugs.

“Come down here!” Anna calls. “I want to talk.”

Ordinarily, getting Severa to obey is like pulling teeth. But for a select few, she’s a pushover. Namely Sister Anna, Father Libra, and a chosen few of the other children. She doesn’t have friends or family, but it’s the closest she’s comfortable getting.

She dons her jacket before heading down, slipping her pack of cigarettes into her pocket. If Anna was in a good mood, she’d let her smoke.

 

She was in a good mood, as it turned out, but as Severa withdrew the pack from her pocket, Anna shook her head.

“Not on the grounds, Severa. You know this.”

Resigned, Severa tucks it back into her pocket. “So? She asks, a little miffed she has to be outside _and_ her Severa-time was interrupted.

“You weren’t at dinner tonight,” Anna says.

“I know. I fell asleep.”

“Quite a few people are very cross with you right now.” Anna pats the stone bench next to her, and Severa sits. There’s a large oak tree is situated in the middle of the courtyard, though its leaves are still buds. Severa stares at the branches.

The orphanage was small, less than a block in length and width, shaped like a giant hollow square, with the courtyard in the middle. There were dormitories, the chapel, the rectory, and the offices, all tucked into their own little areas of the brownstone gothic-on-a-budget building. Severa was forced to attend church every week, though it was common knowledge that she either slept or did her nails for the duration of the services.

“I know,” she says again.

“You should apologize for swearing at Sister Maria.”

“Then she should stop being such a fucking bitch.”

Anna sighs. “This is what I mean.”

“No,” Severa stomps her heavy leather boot into the stone. “Look, I know I’m a fuckup, okay? I don’t need her on my case constantly to remind me of that.”

“She just wants what’s best for you.”

Severa folds her arms over her chest. “No, she doesn’t give a shit about me. She wants me gone, just like you all do.”

“That’s not true.”

“It IS true!”

“Well, don’t _you_ want to be gone? Don’t you want a family of your own?”

That gives Severa pause. “Who would even want me?”

Anna sighs. “Severa…”

Severa closes her eyes, and rubs her temples. “What did you want to talk to me about, anyway? Or did you just bring me down here to lecture me about swearing?”

“Father Libra says you got into a fight today.”

“Yeah? So?”

“I wanted to ask you what happened.”

Severa stares glumly at her shoes. She had lied when she said she didn’t remember, but even now she’s hesitant to speak the truth. “He tugged my hair in gym class.”

“So you hit him back?”

“I closed his locker on his hand when I was passing in the hall.”

“And I’m guessing it escalated from there. Why did he tug your hair in the first place?”

Severa shrugs.

“Was it something you said?”

“Look, I’m…I’m gonna go shower and go to bed, okay?” Severa stands up before Sister Anna has a chance to respond.

 

 

Severa hears hushed voices coming from Father Libra’s office as she makes the journey back to her room. She hears her name spoken softly, and her name spoken again by another voice, this time with harsh disdain. She creeps along the wall, stepping carefully, venturing as close as she dares to Father Libra’s office to listen in.

“It’s only one more year, Sister. Then she’s the state’s problem.” That’d be Libra.

“One more year?” snaps another voice. Severa ventures a guess who it belongs to. “She could kill someone by then!”

“What are you suggesting, then? We throw her into a detention facility? How do you think she’d fare, somewhere like that?”

“I’m just worried about the other children.”

“I know you’re upset because she hurt your nephew, but she wouldn’t hurt the other children here. You know she wouldn’t.”

“It’s not just that. What kind of role model is she to them? How do you think it influences them, seeing their ‘big sister’ getting into fights and getting suspended?” Severa can practically hear the air quotes.

“We can find someone else to take her.”

“Who? It’s been seven years, Father. What makes you think someone will take her now, if no one has before?”

“I can make some calls to some of the other parishes and see if anyone else is better equipped for…for someone…someone with her needs.”

Severa frowns and presses her ear closer.

“I thought you had been checking all this time.”

“W-well, yes, but…”

“But what? If no one was willing to take her before, certainly no one will with her current record.”

“Father Wendell.” A name said with triumph.

“What?”

“Father Wendell said he met a couple who was looking to adopt a…a special needs child. I can speak to them, maybe.”

Severa closes her eyes and slumps back against the wall, still listening even as her chest caves into itself. Blood roars in her ears. She feels sick and dizzy, the words swirling in her head without meaning. She tries to still her shaking hands.

“A child?” the voice comes in again, harsh. “A child, not an adult.”

“She still is a child, for one more year.”

“Sometimes, Father, I think your heart might be a little too big.”

Severa stumbles back to her room in a daze, pausing briefly to clasp tightly against the stairwell railing and fight off a bout of vertigo. By the time she reaches her room she feels ready to vomit. A sea of conflicted emotions well up within her, mixing together and churning in her stomach. She collapses onto her bed without taking off her boots and huddles tightly, hugging her pillow to her chest, shuddering.

It would be like all the other times. All the other families, all smiles and friendliness until they found out how she really was. Then she’d be returned, like some defective product. There would be stammered excuses, mutterings of “things not meant to be”. Then she would be left here, again, again and again and again. There was no point in being hopeful. It always ended the same way.

She steels herself by digging her fingers into the pillow, practically clawing at the fabric. She holds tightly, so tightly her hands tremble and her arms seize up.

No, she decides. She’s had enough.

Enough of stupid families and their stupid fake smiles, enough of bratty little kids getting carted off while she stays, unloved and unwanted. Enough of Father Libra and his lies and his deflections. Enough of Sister Maria and her open palm – no more bruised cheeks, no more stinging backs of the hand from a snapped ruler, no more getting cuffed on the back of the head, no more heart racing at the sound of her door unlocking. Her panic turns to anger.

She throws the pillow across the room and snatches up her backpack. Packing up her worldly possessions doesn’t take long – she starts with a few changes of clothes, neatly folded and packed down into the backpack. She overturns her room, digging for anything that she cares about.

She takes inventory: four changes of clothes, two packs of cigarettes. A phone number, purpose unknown. A card with flowers on it. A thick, heavily weathered paperback novel with a rose on the cover. A gold ring on a chain, which she ties around her neck and tucks into her shirt. A half-empty matchbook bearing the logo of a local diner. A pile of hairties from her desk. A makeup compact. Six dollars and thirty-eight cents.

Not a lot, but enough.

She slips out of her room, not bothering to lock the door behind her. She leaves nothing but an empty corkboard, an overturned desk, and a ratty old bed. The halls are dark, quiet, and empty. Everyone is asleep. The grounds are motionless, save a single shadow darting between hallways, slipping through doorways. Finally she climbs out a window and drops half a story down to street level.

Her boots hit dirt and she rolls, wincing as she lands on her backpack. It doesn’t matter though – she’s free.


	3. Chapter 3

Lucina is thrilled. She wakes up bright and early, just as the sun begins to creep through her blinds, rolls out of bed, and throws her pajamas to the floor. It’s a warm, breezy Monday and she doesn’t have to go to school. The weekend had been fine, but _this –_ this was the life she lived for. She creeps down the stairs, careful not to wake anyone else. She stops by the door and pets the cat while pulling on her sneakers.

“Hey, there, Grima. Who’s a good girl?” she whispers, scratching the cat behind her ears. A soft “mrrp!” of approval makes Lucina grin. “Be back in a bit, okay?”

 

It’s early – too early for anyone but the longest commuters to be awake and ready for the day. Were it a school day, Lucina would be sleeping in for another full hour. But this wasn’t a school day. It was a Lucina Day. She stretches in the driveway and takes a moment to fiddle with her music player before setting off into the cool, misty dawn.

Her lungs burn, her feet thump against pavement, her tight blue ponytail bounces, and she is _living_.

She takes her usual running route, the one that takes her out of the grassy banks of the suburbs, along main street and out into the countryside, past the now-emptied fields of crops, and finally it circles back around towards the high school. Lucina loves it – six miles, all told, with a stop at the track bathroom for a drink just before the last mile home. Lovely and scenic, especially with the sun cresting the horizon, illuminating the fields and groves of trees that dot the countryside around Ylisstol. It’s a hazy morning, fog alighting in shades of gold on the fields and casting long shadows from fenceposts and telephone poles. She follows the visual landmark of the water tower – a beacon, shining in the morning sun, drawing her ever closer to the school.

And then finally, out of breath, she stumbles into the parking lot and heads for the track. It’s still early but a few cars are starting to circle the campus, a handful settling into teacher-designated parking spots. She makes her way to the track and looks over the brick building set into the bleachers – four doors; men’s and women’s bathrooms and locker rooms.

She kicks open the bathroom door and stumbles in, panting. She wipes her brow with a paper towel before crossing to the bank of white sinks. Halfway through scooping cold water up to her mouth, she realizes she’s not alone. She yanks her earbuds from her ears.

“Severa?” she stands upright, startled.

Severa stands at the far end of the bank of sinks, dipping a tail of her scarlet hair into a stream of sink water. An open bottle of shampoo rests on the sink next to her, and she seems to be trying to run a brush through the tangles of red. She frowns.

“What are you doing here?” Lucina asks, incredulous. “I thought you got suspended!”

“What the fuck are _you_ doing here?” Severa angrily yanks her hairbrush through her hair.

“I’m on a run, and…I decided to stop for…” Lucina’s voice trails off. “Do you need some help with that?”

“I’m fine,” Severa snaps. As she does, the brush breaks through a clump of hair and she accidentally plunges her hand into the sink, splashing herself. “Fuck!” she kicks the sink.

“Are you sure?” Lucina takes a step towards her. “Here, let me help.”

“Don’t touch me!” Severa takes a step back, her soaked hair trailing behind her. “Leave me alone.”

“What are you doing here?” Lucina asks again.

“Our water got shut off,” Severa mutters. “There was a main break, or something. How the fuck should I know?”

Lucina steps towards her cautiously, scanning the room. Severa’s backpack is tucked under the sink – open, and from what Lucina can tell, filled with clothes. Severa marches to a hand dryer, flips the nozzle, and slaps the power button. She holds her hair out over the jet of hot air to dry it. Lucina has to admit that it’s a little bit remarkable.

“You know, the girl’s locker room has a full shower.”

Severa frowns. “What?”

“The one right next door. It’s locked, but I can get you in, if you want.” Severa’s split-second of hesitation is enough, and Lucina pounces. “Come on! I’ll jimmy the lock open and you can get yourself a real shower.”

Lucina sits on the locker room benches and does stretches while Severa showers. She listens to the hiss of water and watches clouds of steam billowing from the shower stall. She can see two bare feet underneath, tiptoeing around the metal drain set into the floor. Severa is silent.

“You okay in there?” Lucina calls, looking up from a hamstring stretch. No response. Maybe the water’s too loud. “I said, y-“

“Fine,” comes a snapped response.

“The door’s supposed to be locked at all times, except for track meets,” Lucina explains. “But on hot days we like to sneak in and shower off before the end of practice. The coaches know, but they don’t really care so long as we do all our exercises.” With some fondness, she remembers their first attempt to get into the locker room – it involved extensive use of a vaulting pole and two sets of starting blocks. Now, though, they could just pry the lock by jiggling the handle in just the right way.

There’s no response. Lucina looks at the stall door, dissatisfied.

“So, two weeks off, huh? Bet that’s pretty fun for you.”

Nothing.

“Anything planned?”

Nada.

“I’m probably going to do my work, mostly, but I’m thinking about biking down to the lake on Friday. Maybe having a picnic lunch or something.”

No reaction.

Lucina leans forward. “Uh…would you want to come, maybe? You could use my brother’s bike. O-or we could just walk, I guess.”

The only sound is water running down the drain.

“My…my name’s Lucina.”

“I know. You sit behind me in history.”

The water shuts off and Lucina almost falls off her bench.

“Shit,” Severa growls.

“Huh? What’s wrong?”

“I didn’t bring a towel.”

Lucina’s face lights up like a stoplight. “Uh-um-uh-uh-“ she stammers, floundering for some advice. “Uh, there’s, uh…I could give you my shirt, I guess?”

“Your nasty, sweaty shirt? What the hell?!”

“I don’t know!” Lucina cries. “H-how about you just use the hand dryers again? I’ll go wait outside.”

 

She scrambles out of the locker room and shuts the door behind it, leaving it cracked for easy return access. The cool air feels marvelous on her face – now not just sweaty, but flushed with embarrassment. She lets out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding and slumps against the brick by the door. So much for a quiet, uneventful morning.

She watches the parking lot fill, gazing at the students filtering into school for the day. She almost thinks about getting up and joining them, going into school and attending class regardless. Then she looks at her sweat-slicked t-shirt and her yoga pants and her total lack of school supplies and shrugs it off.

The door beside her opens and Severa steps out, fresh as a daisy. Well, a slightly damp daisy. Her hair is still fairly wet and matted, but it’s tied up into its signature twintail look. She’s changed, too, into a pair of stylish dark-wash jeans and an unbuttoned plaid shirt overtop a scoop-neck tank top. Even looking like she’s dressed for a day in, she still manages to look stylish as all hell.

Lucina, even more aware of her nasty attire and her sweaty, messy hair, blushes. She stands, hoping she can ward off feelings of discomfort. “So, uh…I’ll leave you to it, then? Unless you want someone to walk with, I mean.”

Severa slings her backpack over her shoulder. “It’s fine. Um…thanks, though.”

Lucina smiles broadly. “No problem! Let me know if you change your mind about Friday, though!”

Severa frowns up at her. Lucina is taller by a head, and her goofy grin makes Severa feel uncomfortable. “Y-yeah.”

A voice cuts across the lot, followed by a screech of tires. “You fucking BITCH!”

Lucina and Severa both jerk their heads in the direction of the voice.

A large boy stalks towards them, one hand wrapped in a splint. His face is twisted into a fiery glare to rival Severa’s own. “You’ve got a lot of nerve showing up here!”

Severa, unfazed, rolls her eyes. “What are you doing here, Matthis? Don’t you have like, toilet water to be gargling or something?”

“I thought I’d have to wait two weeks to settle my score with you,” he rolls up his sleeves as he approaches. “Guess today’s my lucky day!”

“Wait!” Lucina cries, stepping between them and holding her arms out. “Okay, guys, just…calm down, okay?”

“Outta my watch, bitch!” Matthis snags her arm and yanks her, roughly tossing her to the ground.

“Don’t you fucking touch her!” Severa lunges to put herself between the boy and Lucina.

He sneers. “Aw, what’s this? Guess you really are a dyke, huh?”

“She’s not involved in this, Matthis,” Severa says sternly. “Leave her alone.”

“Elliot wasn’t either, but you seemed to have no problem dragging him into it!”

“He kicked me, asshole!” Severa shouted.

“Just seems fair,” Matthis snarls, sending a foot toward’s Lucina’s crumpled form.

Severa jumps forward and pummels him, sending him careening backwards into the gravel with a scrape. She barely reaches his chest, but her fury makes up for her size.

“S-Severa!” Lucina pushes herself weakly to her feet. She probably would do okay in a fight – or so she’s told herself. But that’s assuming she wasn’t at the tail end of a six-mile run. Her muscles burned as she tried hauling herself to her feet. Her arm was scraped and bleeding.

“Who’s this, your backup?” Severa grunts, glaring at the two other boys heading her way. “Can’t even fight a girl?”

“Severa!” Lucina cries, stumbling towards them. “Stop it!”

Matthis gets to his feet and lunges at Severa, who easily side-steps him and sticks a foot out, sending him toppling to the ground. “Hahaha! Dumbass!” she laughs. Her taunt is cut short by a fist to the back of her head.

Matthis’ backup has evidently arrived. Lucina scrambles backwards, looking around the parking lot for someone to call to. There should be a traffic cop, or a teacher, or…something!

Severa tumbles forward but manages to stay upright until Matthis rolls into her path and kicks her legs, sending her sprawling. He gets to his feet and kicks her again. “Fucking BITCH!” he shouts hoarsely. “Fuck you!”

“Leave her alone!” Lucina cries, tears flooding her eyes. Severa might be a bitch, but not even she deserved three boys (seniors, no less!) thrashing her in the school parking lot at seven in the fucking morning. “Please, just leave her alone!”

Severa curls into a ball defensively, grunting as a foot connects with her ribcage. Someone bends down and grabs her backpack, trying to haul her to her feet by its straps. Before she can even be brought up to her full height, a fist to her stomach has her doubled over in pain.

Lucina wipes her eyes and starts shouting. “Help! Please! S-someone!”

“Shut up!” one of the other boys roars at her.

Severa does her best to push herself to her knees, blinking blood from her eyes. One of the boys snatches her hair and tugs, bringing her face into the gravel. She weakly crawls forwards until another foot lands on her back. Matthis grabs her backpack and tears it, sending a cloud of belongings scattering into the parking lot. Clothes, mostly, but a few odds and ends. Some papers flutter in the wind and Lucina sees a folded cardstock card crunch under someone’s foot. A book skids across the gravel. Severa lets out another cry as Matthis uses the torn backpack like a harness to lift her and toss her.

“Stupid bitch,” Matthis growls, kicking her again.

Lucina stumbles forwards, desperate to help but knowing she’s putting herself in danger. She shoves Matthis off Severa’s crumpled form and he stares at her, shocked.

“Leave her alone,” Lucina says, with all the defiant courage she can muster.

Before he can hit her, a police siren chirps, cutting through the parking lot.

The three boys look at each other nervously and begin to take off. “Fucker,” Matthis spits, letting his foot catch Severa’s chin as he steps over her and dashes off, vanishing into the sea of parked cars.

Lucina wipes tears from her face and kneels at Severa’s side.

She’s a mess. Alive, for sure, but badly hurt. She’s motionless and silent, but alive. Blood pools in the gravel beneath her and Lucina tries to take stock of her wounds, ignoring the police car parking behind her.


	4. Chapter 4

Severa wakes in a hospital bed, her chest burning and her whole body aching. She tries to shift but doing so only shoots sparks of pain through her torso. She grimaces and lets out a groan.

She doesn’t have to wait long before a nurse comes in and fills her in on where she is and what’s happened. She remembers the fight, and getting hit, and collapsing. She remains silent, nodding as the nurse runs over her injuries.

Three broken ribs, a fractured wrist, two broken fingers, and a moderate-to-severe concussion. She nods. Thus, the pain. Her left cheek is padded with gauze, as are both arms, and the nurse explains that she had some nasty scrapes and they had needed to pick the gravel out before the scrapes got infected. Severa asks for painkillers and is denied. She asks about smoking and is also denied.

 _Great_ , she leans back, watching the nurse leave.

As if it were possible for things to get even worse.

Leaving home on a Friday night was a good call – lots of businesses open late, including coffeeshops that catered to the late-night party (and subsequent party recovery) crowds. She had spent Friday night asleep in a coffeeshop booth after ordering a single black coffee. She drank it for breakfast on Saturday.

Saturday was the easy day. It was warm out and she spent the day in the park, alternating between reading and sleeping. There was a water fountain, a bathroom, and a vending machine.

She spent Saturday night in the park. Or, that had been the plan until it started raining. Soaking wet and desperately trying to keep her matches, cigarettes, and book dry, she made her way to the school. She set up camp in the bathroom at the track, barring the door and stripping her clothes to dry them with the hand dryer.

Sunday was a little rougher. She had spent most of her money on the coffee and a bag of chips. So, she did what came naturally.

Her first trip to the convenience store netted her a disposable lighter, a package of cookies, and a bottle of shampoo. Her second trip, to another store, scored her lipstick, powdered soap, and a box of granola bars. That was all she felt comfortable doing at once.

Sunday night was easy – she laid in the grass of the track stadium, pulled her jacket over her shoulders, and rested her head on her backpack like a pillow. There was some sort of beauty to it, she admitted. Laying in the grass, staring up at the stars, smoking. Of the three nights, Sunday was the most comfortable. The artificial turf field was surprisingly soft and springy, and when she woke in the morning she had almost forgotten where she was, just for a moment. Washing the little black rubber bits out of her hair was a nightmare, though. And that’s what she was doing when Lucina arrived.

It turns out cookies and nicotine aren’t a sturdy enough breakfast to get you through a fist-fight. She had been dizzy going in. The results were…disappointing, but unsurprising.

She lolls her head to the side. There’s a dull ache in her skull, and no matter how she positions her head, it won’t go away. One hand is wrapped in a splint.

A doctor comes in to do some tests. She takes her temperature, changes the gauze on her arms and face, checks her eyes, ears, mouth. She presses a hand against Severa’s brow. “How are you feeling? Any dizziness, nausea, headaches?”

Severa nods.

“All three?”

Nod.

“Are you having any trouble seeing?”

She shakes her head.

“Okay. We should have the results of your CT scan back soon. In the meantime, do you think it would be possible for you to help us fill out some paperwork for you?”

Severa squints. “Paperwork?”

“For the insurance. The girl who was with you gave us your name, but she couldn’t tell us anything else. It doesn’t look like you have any medical records here, either.”

“Is she okay?”

“Hm?”

“The…” Severa fights back a wave of nausea. “The girl who brought me in. Is she hurt?”

The doctor flips a page on her clipboard. “No, she seems fine. In fact, she’s out in the waiting room now. Would you like me to send her in?”

 

 

Lucina bolts through the door and practically throws her arms around Severa before stopping herself.

“Severa! Are you okay?”

“L…” Severa closes her eyes and leans back. “Lucina?”

Lucina nods and kneels at her bedside. “Does it hurt? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Severa says sarcastically. “Just great.”

“Okay, okay. No need to be mean about it.” Lucina sits in the chair at Severa’s bedside. “They asked me about contacting your parents, but I had to tell them I didn’t know their number or anything. I said the school probably has it on file, but…”

Severa shrugs, immediately regretting it as pain bolts through her chest. “It’s…fine,” she gasps out.

“Oh! And I have this,” Lucina fishes a book out of her bag and sets it on the bedside table. “It fell out of your bag, when, uh…you know.”

Severa picks it up and checks over the cover.

“I never pegged you for much of a romance fan, but hey, to each their own,” Lucina continues.

“Thanks,” Severa says, quietly. She holds the book to her chest and clasps it tightly. “It…it means a lot to me.”

“Oh, and uh…I got some other stuff, too. There’s this card, and I’m guessing you want these.” Lucina sets the card on the table, though at this point it looked like it had been crumpled and then poorly smoothed out. Next to it, Lucina sets a pack of cigarettes. “There was another thing, too, a piece of paper, maybe? But I couldn’t find it. After all your stuff got scattered. Um…I hope you don’t mind, I took your clothes home to wash. They were pretty gross, even without all the dirt and gravel and stuff.”

Severa nods and gives Lucina a curious look. “Wh…why are you doing all this for me?”

“I mean…” Lucina shrugs and closes her bag. “As I see it, you got beat up trying to defend me. The least I can do it watch your stuff.”

“Um…” Severa smooths out her blanket. “Today’s still Monday, right?”

Lucina nods. “Yeah. Getting towards three, I think.”

“Has anyone come in to see me?”

“Like, your parents or anything? No, I don’t think so.”

Severa lets out a relieved sigh. “Okay.”

“If you give me their number, I can call and tell them you’re alright-“ Lucina offers before Severa cuts her off.

“No.”

Lucina raises an eyebrow. She’s tried thinking about what kind of parents someone like Severa might have. While in the waiting room, she boiled it down to two choices – absolute angels, to whom Severa was a massive disappointment, or awful jerks in the vein of their daughter. It was understandable that Severa wouldn’t want either here. She had tried gleaning a little of Severa’s personal life from her belongings, but her only hint is the card, which is not personalized. It was a simple card, store-bought, with some generic “Sorry For Your Loss” phrase on the inside. No name, no details. If it weren’t for the dirt smudges and dents, it could have been fresh off the Hallmark rack.

Which left Severa’s parents a mystery.

As if summoned by her thoughts, a commotion rises up in the hall outside Severa’s room. A man bursts through the door, two police officers in tow.

“F-Father Libra?” Severa stammers, startled.

“Severa?” he rushed to her side. “Severa, thank god! Are you alright?”

She folds her arms across her chest and scowls. So much for her grand getaway.

“Please, sir. You’ll have to wait outside.”

“No!” Libra protests. “I want to speak with Severa.”

Lucina curls up in her chair to make room for the men, and suddenly the quiet hospital room seems very full and frantic. The officers are doing their best to convince Libra to leave, and Severa is stonewalling him, and in the middle of it all, Lucina flounders.

She tries to get a grip on the situation and utterly fails. Why would Severa’s boss be here? Why were there cops? Weren’t they supposed to be contacting Severa’s parents? Lucina’s head spins.

“Shut up!” Severa screams, rattling her bedframe despite the pain. “Shut up, shut up, shut UP!” The room stills to a dead quiet. Lucina briefly considers bolting for the door.

“Why are you here?” Severa snaps at Libra, her voice cracking despite her determination to sound angry.

“The police contacted us,” Libra explains calmly. “They said you were hurt.”

“That’s it?” Severa folds her arms over her chest.

“I hurried here as soon as I got the call.”

“Why weren’t you looking for me?” Severa’s voice shakes her lower lip trembles. It almost seems to Lucina like she’s going to start crying. “Why weren’t you looking?”

The two officers look at each other uncertainly.

“We…you…” Libra falters. “This isn’t the first time this has happened, Severa. You know that. If we filed a missing persons report every time you ran away, w-“

“I don’t care!” Severa shouts. “You weren’t even TRYING!” She gasps, half out of pain and half out of despair. Chest heaving, she pushes forwards. “You don’t even care about me! You were probably all so relieved to find out I’d gone!”

“No, Severa. Of course not.” Libra’s voice is soothing. He makes a good priest, Lucina figures.

“Shut up!” she screams. “Shut UP! You fucking LIAR!”

“Liar? What do you mean?”

Severa’s chest catches and she lets out a gasp of pain. She clutches her chest and leans forward, her breath jerky and spastic. Libra reached out a hand to touch her and she smacks it away. “Don’t touch me!” she snaps. “I know…” her accusations come in waves, her voice modulated by her heavy breathing and painful shudders. “I know about…about Father Wendell…and…y-you were talking ab-about…” she blinks and Lucina can see tears tracking down her cheeks.

A nurse begins shuffling the police officers out of the room. She stops and calmly takes Libra’s hand. “You’re upsetting her. It’s best to just let her rest for now.” When the nurse returns for Lucina, Severa holds out her hand.

“N-no,” she says, blinking back tears. “I want Lucina to stay.”

The nurse leaves and Lucina finds herself yet again alone with Severa in the hospital room. Only now…

“Severa…” before Lucina can speak, Severa sniffles and wipes her nose.

“Lucina, I…please don’t make me go back,” she pleads. “Please, Lucina. I…I want you to promise me.” Her eyes sting with tears and she wipes them with her good wrist. “Please don’t make me go back.”

“Okay,” Lucina breathes, uncertain what she has gotten herself into. “I promise.”

Exhausted, Severa closes her eyes and sinks into a hazy, painful sleep.

 

-

 

“I want you to help me leave.”

Lucina looks up from her homework at Severa, sitting in her hospital bed, gazing out the window. Her mysterious book is closed on her lap. It’s the following morning, and Lucina smuggled Severa the entirely wholesome breakfast of a donut and nicotine gum, courtesy of her brother’s shady friends. She brought her notebook to sit and do homework. “Okay,” she says.

“I’m serious.”

“Me too,” Lucina snaps her notebook shut. “I…look, Severa. I don’t know what’s going on in your life right now, but if I can help, I want to. You can stay with us, maybe. We have a guest bedroom, and…” she shrugs. “I don’t know.”

Severa nervously thumbs the pages of her book. “You don’t even know me.”

“So? Why would that stop me from wanting to help you?”

“Why do you even care about me?”

Lucina sighs and slips her notebook into her bag. “Look, do you want any help, or not?”

Lucina is incredibly grateful that her current suspension means she essentially has free reign over the house between the hours of eight and six. She returns home and fetches Severa a change of clothes, a baggy sweater, and an inconspicuous hat.

Actually getting Severa _into_ the clothing proves a little more difficult. Her splinted hand shoots pain up her arm with any strain, so slipping it through a shirtsleeve proves a painful and sluggish endeavor. Her bandaged chest, too, sparks with pain at any touch, making shimmying into Lucina’s loaned sweater difficult. Severa shifts uncomfortably in the sweater.

“It’s itchy.”

“Yeah, sorry, I figured your clothes would be harder to get on,” Lucina apologizes. “Can you stand?”

Severa slides sideways out of the hospital bed and lands on her feet. She tests her weight and Lucina tries not to look at the drafty bottom of her hospital gown poking out of the bottom hem of the sweater.

“H-here,” Lucina thrusts a baggy pair of sweatpants at her and moves to the door. “I’ll, uh, keep watch.” She coughs.

Lucina stares out the glass pane at the hospital hallway beyond. It’s early in the morning, still quiet, and no one passes. Behind her, she can hear shifting, sliding fabric and soft muttered curses. Then a hand taps her shoulder.

“Shoes?”

“Shit,” Lucina curses. “I forgot. Here, take mine.” She slips off her sneakers and slides them to Severa, who pokes them with suspicion.

“These are gross.”

“Look, do you want out of here?”

Severa sighs and finishes donning her accessories. She puts on Lucina’s shoes and ties her hair up into a braid that she tucks under Lucina’s loaned knit cap. She winces, knowing that she looks ridiculous. They slip into the hallway when Lucina gives the all clear, and Severa finds her hand entwined with Lucina’s as the former tugs the latter through the septic maze of white tile and off-blue walls. They reach a bank of elevators and Lucina hits the call button.

Severa stares out the windows bordering the elevators, looking out into the parking lot and grassy plazas beyond. The hospital is built into the side of a hill, and she can see the asphalt give way to suburban homes and groves of trees. In the distance, the sun creeps slowly into the sky. The elevator chimes.

Lucina manages to slip Severa out the front door by leaning obnoxiously on the front desk as she asks the receptionist inane questions, distracting her long enough for Severa to limp through the glass sliding doors. And then she’s free again. Back into the cool open air of a bright spring morning.

“Unfortunately,” Lucina says, returning to her side. “I had to bike here, so we can either walk or you can ride on the back of my bike. Do you think you can balance?”

Severa holds up her splinted hand.

“Okay, okay, don’t go waving that around,” Lucina hisses, lowering Severa’s arm. “We’re still on hospital property.”

With some degree of struggling, Severa manages to mount the pegs on the back of Lucina’s bike and lean against her. Lucina steers with one hand and uses the other to hold Severa’s splinted forearm, keeping the two of them pinned close as Lucina coasts down hills. Severa hops off and walks on uphills, and with the patchwork of limping, walking, and riding, the two manage to cross the town.

Lucina is thankful it’s that perfect morning sweet spot, where all the other kids are in school and most of the adults are at work. The rural country roads are quiet, and they don’t pass a single car as they ride back towards the suburbs. For her part, Lucina is having the time of her life – an exciting AM bike ride, coasting through the fields and groves of trees, the wind in her hair and her pedals beneath her feet. The sun sparkles in the sky and she pedals with almost reverent care.

Behind her, Severa is suffering. Her hand is searing in pain, her chest aches with each and every bump in the road, and her head spins. She feels nauseous from the first hill, and the feeling never leaves, even when she doubles over on the side of the road to hurl her meager breakfast. The dizziness refuses to go away, much to her frustration, and a splitting headache hounds her. The brightness of the sun hurts her eyes, and the sound of rubber against gravel is grating and irritating.

“You okay, back there?” Lucina asks as they crest a hill. “We’re almost there, don’t worry.”

Severa nods, worried that if she opens her mouth to speak she’ll vomit again. The hills sweeps downwards, plunging out of a wooded copse and curving into the broad swoop of a suburban street.


	5. Chapter 5

“You can just leave your shoes…er, my shoes by the door,” Lucina says, shutting the door behind the two of them. “My parents won’t be home until about seven, but my brother will be back around four. So you have some time to relax, if you want.”

Severa nods, kneeling to untie her borrowed sneakers. She feels dazed, and its not just the headache and the taste of bile on her tongue. It feels like some sort of surreal fever-dream, brought on by head trauma. She stands and surveys the foyer.

Lucina’s house is a largish contemporary suburban home, European-style, all stone and plaster. From the entrance Severa can see stairs running up to a second story, and she can see a cluster of rooms on the first floor – a carpeted living room complete with a large L-couch, an entertainment center crowned with a slick black TV; the kitchen, with hardwood floors extending back out to a glass porch door, and the backyard beyond.

Severa frowns.

“I can grab your clothes from the laundry, if you want!” Lucina says brightly, returning to her side. You can take my room or a bathroom to change, then I can give you a quick walking tour?”

Severa nods numbly. She dresses slowly, wincing as each motion brings more pain, and her head won’t stop swimming. She steadies herself on the marble bathroom sink, clutching the rim and trying not to throw up. She looks in the mirror for the first time since leaving home.

Unsurprisingly, she looks like shit. Half of her face is scratched and bruised, and a dark red scrape tracks down one cheek. Evidently the hospital hadn’t been taking care of her hair, since it hangs it matted tangles down her back (though the bike ride likely didn’t help). She had bags under her eyes, and their reddish color is dull and rusty. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

There’s a knock at the bathroom door. “You okay in there?”

“Yeah.”

 

-

 

Lucina walks Severa around the house, giving her a brief tour. “This is the living room, obviously, and there’s the kitchen. My parents pretty much don’t care what I eat, so you can help yourself to stuff in the fridge and the pantry.” Lucina continues, pacing around the circular floorplan. “This is the dining room, but we pretty much only use it for dinner. We can eat at the kitchen counter for lunch, or just like, on the couch or wherever. Oh!” Lucina’s voice spikes upwards. She tilts her head to the side. “Aw, it’s okay, Grima! You can come out!”

Severa glares at her.

“Oh, she’s our cat,” Lucina says apologetically. “She’s a little bit skittish, but she’s awful and we love her. She’ll probably just avoid you, though. She doesn’t like strangers.”

As if on cue, the tiny pointed face of a small black cat pokes around the corner, looking at the pair of girls with wide, watchful eyes. Then she vanishes again.

Lucina continues the tour, taking Severa up the stairs and into the second-floor hallway. “This is Morgan’s room, this is my room, and my parents’ room is at the end of the hall. The guess bedroom is across the hall from mine, and that’s probably where you’ll be staying. Do you want me to help get your room set up?”

Severa winces and presses a hand against her throbbing forehead. “Honestly, I kind of just want to rest.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry! Of course,” Lucina pushes open the door to her own bedroom. “You can sleep on my bed for now, until we get your stuff set up. Is that okay?”

Severa nods.

“Great! I’ll be downstairs if you need me, okay?”

Severa trudges into Lucina’s bedroom and collapses onto the bed, drained. This was more social interaction than she was used to in a week – Lucina’s bright, chipper personality was _incessant_. She seemed incapable of giving Severa even a moment’s peace to think, exacerbating her already piercing headache. Now, in the silence of Lucina’s bedroom, Severa leans back and tries to calm herself.

A breeze is coming through the open window, and she can smell the scent of cut grass and hear the distant mutter of a lawnmower engine. It was all so _fucking_ idyllic. She sits up and looks around the room, trying to get a feel for the sort of person who would willingly invite a stranger into her home. The sort of person who would trust a known delinquent and troublemaker to have free reign over her stuff.

Perhaps spitefully, she swipes a five-dollar bill from Lucina’s dresser and pockets it. It’s not like Lucina needed the damn money.

Her room is small and messy, piles of discarded clothes draped over a desk cluttered with papers. A stylish blazer hangs haphazardly off the back of the desk chair, its sleeves almost draping down to the carpet. In contrast to Severa’s barren bunkroom, the walls are plastered – not an inch is wasted. Posters hang at odd angles, proclaiming the latest blockbuster movies, bands Severa hates, art prints, reproductions of classic paintings. A large calendar is pinned up to a corkboard, almost every day filled in with _something_ , be it “track meet” or “Morgan’s birthday!” or “MY BIRTHDAY!” or proclaiming various projects due. Stickers adorn the days and Severa pokes closer, digging her nail under a moon sticker and prying it off and sticking it in her pocket.

She paces the room, stepping on discarded clothes and overturned magazines. For someone whose life seemed to be as together as Lucina’s, her room sure did seem like a disaster zone. Curiosity satisfied, Severa kicks her boots off and sinks into Lucina’s mattress, drawing her crumpled pack of cigarettes from her pocket. She sticks one in her mouth before realizing she lost her matches and her lighter. And she doubts Lucina has either in her pile of junk.

She spies a scented candle pushed into the corner of the desk and reconsiders.

Finally she lays back, watching curls of smoke drifting from her cigarette towards the ceiling, swirls of white blowing in the spring breeze. She sighs, letting the scent wrap around her and calm her nerves. It’s a peaceful scene, and exactly how she wants to spend her afternoon.

That is, until the nausea hits full force. She coughs, sputtering and clutching her stomach, and flops from the bed to the floor. Her back sparks with pain and she lets out a groan. The lurching motion churns her stomach and she crawls for Lucina’s desk trashcan. Her splinted hand smacks the can and she grunts in pain. With herculean effort she manages to haul herself over the lip of the trashcan mere moments before coughing up a stomach full of bile. She coughs and spits, her mouth gummy and acidic.

Her head pulses, her ribs twinge with pain, and her hand involuntarily spasm. She holds herself over the can and dry-heaves before collapsing to the carpet and falling unconscious.

 

-

 

“Oh my god, Severa!” A harsh shout rouses her. Her mouth tastes like ash and bile and her entire body feels like it’s been sitting on a hot grill.

“Mmng,” she manages, opening her eyes.

“Severa, are you okay?” Lucina kneels at her side and touches her. Her light fingertips bring more pain to Severa’s back.

“Lmng…” she mumbles.

“What? What’s wrong? Are you alright?”

“Loud…” Severa manages to choke out, hoping it’s enough to convey her feelings.

“Oh, gosh! Sorry!” Lucina hisses, quieting her voice. She helps pull Severa into a sitting position. “Are you okay?”

Severa nods weakly. “Y-yeah, I think so.” She runs her tongue over the roof of her mouth, trying to clear the sticky feeling.

“Does anything hurt?”

Severa scowls. “Yeah, it all does. Fuck,” she mutters.

“Okay, let me help you back to bed.” Lucina stands and gently pulls Severa to her feet and guides her to the bed. “I did some reading on concussions while you were…uh…asleep,” Lucina says quietly. “It seems like the recommended treatment is just rest and refraining from anything that puts stress on your brain.”

Severa frowns. “What does that mean?”

“The website said no physical exertion, no TV, no video games, no music, no reading, no schoolwork. Nothing that can worsen your symptoms.”

“Then what the fuck am I supposed to do?” Severa snaps, rubbing her temples. Lucina’s voice is like a knife in her scalp.

“Y-yeah, it said irritability is a symptom too.”

“It’s not the fucking concussion!” Severa hisses. “I’m just pissed!”

Lucina sighs. “Okay, well…” She frowns and sniffs the air. “Were you smoking?”

“No,” Severa lies.

“Okay, don’t…do that,” Lucina says. “You’re already in pain, you’re nauseous, and you have headaches, right? Smoking will make it worse. Besides, my parents will be pissed if everything starts smelling like tobacco.”

“They can fucking deal with it.”

“Severa…” Lucina’s voice is sad, almost pleading. She lets out a big sigh and Severa begins pawing through her jacket for another cigarette. When she withdraws the pack, Lucina snatches it from her hand. “No. None of that. I told you.”

“Fine, I’ll go outside.”

“You can have these back when you aren’t throwing up every half hour, okay?” Lucina says, like dealing with a child. “Okay?”

Severa nods slightly.

“Okay. Let’s set some ground rules.”

Severa grinds her teeth, wishing Lucina would leave her the fuck alone. Her head hurts, she’s sore, she’s tired, and the last thing she wants is a lecture. She had hoped this would be different, but she realizes she should have expected nothing less from Little Miss Perfect. Rules, rules, rules. Was this even any better than being on her own?

“No smoking. At least, not until you’re feeling better. Even then, only outside, okay?”

Nod.

“No swearing, okay? I mean, you can around me and Morgan, but try and keep it clean in front of my parents.”

When Severa doesn’t respond, Lucina continues. “Just…try not to be too harsh, okay? If you can?”

Nothing.

“Okay, well, the only time you _have_ to see my parents is at dinner, which is just for a half an hour a day. Can you do that? Can you be civil for half an hour a day?”

“No, probably not.”

“Well…I guess we’ll find out tonight.”

 

-

 

“So, ah…tell us a little bit about yourself, Severa.”

Lucina’s trying not to make eye contact with her parents as she nervously shovels food into her mouth. She’s hoping if she can eat quick enough, she can drag Severa away from the table and avoid the awful, inevitable outcome of this dinner.

Severa’s face has softened from a scowl to disinterested apathy and she picks at her dinner with suspicion.

Robin coughs, hoping her question will be answered after a short, awkward silence.

Severa sets her fork down. “My mom died when I was ten. I don’t like people.” She stares at Robin, daring her to try again. As far as she’s concerned, those are the only personality facets that matter.

“Oh,” Chrom says, surprised. He blinks. “Uh…any hobbies? Play any sports?”

“Nope.”

“Severa’s really into fashion,” Lucina interjects, hoping she can at least wrangle some semblance of normal conversation into the room.

Severa picks at her wrist brace with her free hand and nods.

“That’s fun!” Robin smiles. “A friend of mine in college was studying to be a fashion designer. Her tastes leaned a little…er, gothic for me, though. Do you want to go to school?”

Severa shakes her head.

“Not much of a talker, huh?” Chrom tries.

Morgan shoots Lucina a nervous look. He raises his eyebrows and Lucina shrugs in response. The dead air in the room is palpable. The only sound is the soft tap of metal against porcelain. Rain pounds against the windows. In the distance, thunder rumbles. Severa seems like she isn’t even present. She stares at her wrist brace, either lost in thought or spacing out.

Robin clears her throat. “Um…I see you’re wearing a wrist brace. Do you mind me asking how that happened?”

That garners a response. Severa sits up and looks at Lucina, surprised. “I fell,” she lies effortlessly. “I was walking home and fell down some stairs.” She gestures to the fading bruise on her face.

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Robin laments. “You’ve got such a pretty face, it’s a shame to see it busted up.”

“Mom…” Lucina mutters.

“What? I’m just saying.”

Morgan stares at Lucina, a grin creeping across his face. He’s reveling in the awkwardness – first Lucina gets suspended, and now her weirdo friend ruins dinner? What else could the future hold in store for them? He turns to Severa.

“I head you stabbed a guy. Is that true?” Because of course Morgan knew the rumors, just as well as Lucina did. He leans in closer. “Why’d you do it?”

“For asking stupid fucking questions,” Severa sneers at him and he flinches away.

“Severa…” Lucina warns.

“Morgan!” Robin cries, disappointed. “Don’t be rude.”

“What? I’m just asking!”

 

-

 

“No. Absolutely not. She can _not_ stay with us.”

“Mom, _please_.” Lucina’s pleading voice is soft, muted by the rain pattering against the windows in her father’s study. Her father sits at his desk, her mother at his side, and Lucina herself stands across from them.

“I’m sorry, honey. But your father’s right.”

“Why not?”

Robin tilts her head and raises an eyebrow. “Lucina, you’re a bright girl. You know why.”

“Because she’s rude? So is Morgan!”

“Your brother doesn’t stab people,” Chrom mutters.

“She didn’t!” Lucina protests. “She told me she didn’t! It’s just a rumor!”

“Lucina…” Chrom sits up. “Your heart is in the right place. I know you mean well, but the fact is…this isn’t the sort of person we want staying in our home.”

“How can you say that?!” Lucina cries. “After all you talk about being kind and helping others, and now you’re telling me-“

“When I say ‘be kind’ I mean share your things and give to charity,” Chrom interrupts her. “I don’t mean this.”

“Isn’t this just sharing our things with someone in need?”

“You know what I mean, Luci.”

Lucina looks from her mother to her father and back again. “Mom, dad…please. She…she needs help.”

“Doesn’t she have her own parents? Her own home?”

“No, she doesn’t,” Lucina shakes her head, trying to stop tears from welling. “Please…she’s…she’s got nowhere else to go. She’s hurt and she’s scared and she just needs a place to stay.”

Chrom and Robin look at each other, trying to have a conversation in eye contact alone. Robin turns back to Lucina first. “Where has she been staying?”

“The orphanage, I think.”

Chrom nods thoughtfully. “Why doesn’t she just go back?”

“I…I don’t know,” Lucina admits. “But she made me promise I wouldn’t make her go back.” She wipes her eyes and strengthens her voice. “And I’m not going to break that promise.”

Robin sighs. “We _do_ have a guest bedroom,” she admits. “And it’s not like we’re tight on money, especially since I got that promotion.”

Chrom shakes his head. “Fine. But this is NOT permanent. I’ll make some calls and see what I can do about finding someone willing to take her in, okay? She…she can stay with us until then. And ONLY until then.”

“Thank you!” Lucina cries, stumbling forward and throwing her arms around her father. “Thank you so much.”

 

-

 

With Lucina’s unasked-for help, Severa manages to turn the spare room into something at least somewhat resembling a bedroom. Rather than a full bed, the room only has a fold-out futon, which Lucina helpfully makes up with sheets, blankets, and pillows. There’s no desk but Lucina helps Severa fill up the dresser with both her clothes and loaned clothes from Lucina

Once she leaves, Severa sets up the room more to her liking. She takes her ratty, shredded backpack and the things Lucina managed to save and sets them up around her bed, setting the crumpled cardstock card over her dresser and tossing her paperback novel onto the bed. She changes into a plain tank top and underwear and double checks her necklace, letting the gold ring sit in the open, resting against her bandaged chest. She curls up under the blankets and thumbs through her book. Her head aches and Lucina told her not to read, and low-light reading made her head ache even on good days, but she skims the small black letters until her eyes droop shut.


	6. Chapter 6

“What are you doing?” Morgan’s voice cuts through the morning silence, almost causing Lucina to jump out of her skin. She hadn’t heard him approach – the carpeting in the hallway had been muffling the steps of his bare feet. Or, more likely, she had been entranced, distracted by something else.

“Shh!” Lucina hisses, stepping away from the guest bedroom door and softly closing it. “I’m just checking on her.”

“Uh…huh.” Morgan nods, unconvinced. “Checking on her.”

“I just want to make sure she’s okay,” Lucina tries explaining, hoping the dimness of the hallway obscures her creeping blush. “She’s hurt, and-“

“Do you like her?” Morgan asks, his grogginess obviously leaving him no tolerance for bullshit.

“Do…do I…?”

“Okay, that’s a yes,” Morgan covers a yawn with his mouth and strolls by Lucina on his way to the bathroom.

“Listen,” Lucina turns to her brother and snags his arm, making him face her. “Listen, Morgan. Do _NOT_ tell people about this, okay?”

Morgan smiles smugly. “Of course not.”

“I’m being serious,” Lucina glares. “Seriously, okay? Some guys at school hurt her really badly, and I kind of wanna keep this on the down-low. Please. Please, please, please keep quiet about this.”

“Okay, okay, fine.” Morgan waves her off, trudging into the bathroom. “I was just kidding anyway. I don’t care about your weird girlfriend as long as she doesn’t touch my stuff.”

“She’s not my-“ Lucina’s protest is cut off by the shutting of the bathroom door. She sighs, knowing that any protests would fall on deaf ears. Morgan was at that ripe age where he refused to take anything seriously, and he _especially_ refused to take orders from his sister; Lucina thinks it’s called “adolescence”.

She stops by Severa’s room again on the way back to her own, slowly turning the doorknob to get one last look at the resting girl. Fortunately, Morgan probably hadn’t been up long enough to know that Lucina had been standing in the hall for the better part of ten minutes, her eyes and thoughts transfixed.

Severa’s sleep is anything but sound – her breathing comes in ragged, strained bouts, the constriction of her bandages and broken ribs no doubt making sleeping uncomfortable. Even so, she sleeps almost peacefully. She’s curled against her pillow, her blankets pulled tight and tangled around her like a cozy straightjacket. Her face, though, seems almost serene. Her expression is gentle, her lips parted slightly, her hair splayed around her in messy waves. An open book is lying face-down on the pillow at her side, its spine cracked and one corner resting in what appears to be a spot of drool.

Lucina smiles softly and closes the door before returning to her room.

 

-

 

Severa opens her eyes slowly. She blinks blearily, for a moment forgetting where she is. She sees light streaming through the slats in the blinds and sits up. Through the slight gap between the blinds and the windowsill, she is started to see not the stone walls of the orphanage but instead a field of green. She rubs her eyes and climbs out of bed to investigate.

Pain bolts through her and she collapses as soon as her bare feet touch the carpet. She cries out and it comes back to her in a rush of pain and nausea. She gasps for breath and staggers back to the bed, falling against the futon weakly. Despite the throbbing her in her head, she manages to quell her sudden bout of vertigo. She instinctively looks for a trash can in case she needs to throw up.

Instead, she sees a small bedside table next to the futon – a new addition to the room, if she’s remembering correctly. It’s got a plate on it, though its contents are obscured by a lid set over it. A piece of folded triangular paper rests on top.

_Good morning!_

_I thought you might like some proper breakfast. I hope it’s still warm by the time you wake up._

_I went for a run, but I have my phone so call if you need anything!_

Below is hastily scrawled a phone number, and a final reminder.

_NO SMOKING!!!_

Beside the plate sits a glass of water and a bottle of aspirin. Severa sits up and holds her aching head in her hands. Just what had she gotten herself into with this?

She opts for the medicine first and is surprised to find that its not aspirin, as she had assumed, but something else; Lucina had included yet another note. _This is my migraine medication. If you’re feeling sick, take ONE TAB._

Severa takes two and considers a taking a third before her stomach growls. The plate contains – _oh, god. What is WITH this girl?_ A stack of fresh-cooked pancakes, still warm, though by now the butter and syrup has soaked in, forming a kind of sticky, cakey paste. Severa wolfs it down hungrily regardless. She washes it down with the rest of her glass of water and lays back down, staring at the ceiling and waiting for the medicine to kick in.

 

-

 

“Hey, Severa? Are you awake?”

A voice rouses Severa from her drug-induced stupor. She blinks, her mouth cottony and her stomach lurching. She tries to speak, but all that comes out is a jumbled mess of words.

“Severa, hey.” A gentle hand rocks her and she feels distant, muted pain.

She mumbles again, this time incoherent but inquisitive.

Lucina sighs and folds her arms over her chest. She’s clearly freshly back from her run; her ponytail is disheveled and messy, and sweat is soaked into the edges of her tank-top. Severa’s eyes drift to her thighs, dark and toned, muscles taut below her probably-too-short running shorts.

“How much did you take?”

Severa tries to push herself up and fails. “Mmnh?” she manages.

“Okay,” Lucina huffs, sitting on the bed. “Severa, look at me. Can you hear me?”

Severa nods.

“This is a real medication, Severa. I get a prescription for it. It’s not like aspirin, where you can take a couple, okay? How much did you take?”

“Two?” Severa is finally capable of forming a single, real word.

Lucina lets out a sigh of relief. She had cut her run short after spending half the time worried sick about Severa, and it turns out she was at least _partially_ right to worry. She picked up her medication off the table. “Okay, well, from now on you need to come to me if you want any, okay?”

Severa nods numbly, vaguely disappointed.

“We need to get you cleaned up and change your bandages, okay? I stopped by the store on the way home to pick up some more, but you should probably get a proper bath. Do you think you can handle that?”

Severa collapses back to her pillow with a _whump_ , her strength giving out and her vision slipping back into darkness.

 

-

 

Lucina tidies Severa’s room, cleaning up her plate from breakfast and taking it downstairs to the kitchen to wash. She sighs, moving about the house with a strange and uneasy sluggishness. In the moment, she hadn’t hesitated – she promised to care for Severa, and she promised she wouldn’t make her go back to the orphanage. Unfortunately, her moment of heroic valor and impulsive helpfulness turned out to be a little messier than she had anticipated. Her parents hadn’t spoken to her at all at breakfast, and Morgan’s reaction was still a little tough to gauge. Regardless, maybe leaving the chain-smoking delinquent with free reign over a bottle of tranquilizers was a bad call. Well, Lucina thinks as she drops the clean plate into the drying rack, not all her ideas are good ones.

If nothing else, her week had suddenly become much more exciting. What she had assumed a week of suspension would be like (homework, taking nice walks, studying, maybe finally getting to those shows she still needs to watch) was quickly subsumed by a mire of fistfights, of hospital breakouts and drama of all sorts.

She sits at the kitchen table, skimming over her history textbook (reading ahead), and sipping a mug of the coffee that had been left in the pot. There had only been about half a cup left, and Lucina’s healthy dose of creamer resulted in a drink that didn’t taste great. It was for the best, though, since caffeine made her too jittery to focus on her work, even if the coffee did make her feel like an adult.

When she gets up to check on Severa, she’s surprised to find the girl is sleeping on the couch, evidently having tried to come downstairs before being overcome with exhaustion again. Lucina stifles a giggle; the image Severa tried to present was just so different than the girl snuggled up on the couch before her, her arms wrapped around a throw pillow and holding it tightly. Her borrowed pajamas are askew, the sight made even funnier by the mustard-colored flannel shorts and salmon tie-die shirt with “Bear Creek Bass Tournament” emblazoned on the front (though to be fair, the shirt was once Chrom’s). Her hair is disheveled (and down, no less!), and there isn’t even a trace of venomous irritation on her face. For a moment, Lucina considers leaving her – she seems so much more at peace when she’s asleep, compared to her waking world of hurt and anger. Her braced wrist drapes to the carpet loosely.

Lucina kneels before the couch and gently shakes her. “Are you okay?”

“Mmn?” Severa opens her eyes and blinks. “Wh…?”

“I’m amazed you managed to get all the way down here by yourself,” Lucina says quietly. “Do you think you can stand?”

With some assistance, Severa manages to right herself on two shaky feet. She leans into Lucina, almost dead weight against her.

The two manage to haul Severa back upstairs, where Lucina deposits her back in bed before heading to the bathroom to shower. She gets herself cleaned up, changes, then runs a bath, hoping that Severa can accomplish that a bit more easily than a shower.

Severa manages the bath on her own, spending about an hour soaking in the hot water, combing through her hair, and generally enjoying the last remnants of her quickly fading high.

Before leaving for her run, Lucina had done a little bit of research on treating Severa’s injuries and was pleasantly surprised to learn that mostly she just had to stop her from getting into any more trouble. Rest and time was the biggest factor in healing her particular assortment of problems, and beyond that Lucina really just wanted to keep her medicated for the pain. She had picked up compression bandages and an ice-pack for her chest, and theoretically, that was all she really needed. As she does this, Lucina avoids the overwhelming thought that keeps tugging at the back of her mind, the knowledge that she will probably have to dress Severa, and she will _definitely_ have to help her re-bandage her chest.

Severa, it turns out, does _not_ care for Lucina’s plan to help her, taking the bandages from Lucina’s hand and muttering that she’ll do it her damn self. She’s standing in the hall, wrapped in a towel, her hair damp across her shoulders.

“What if I promise not to look?” Lucina stammers in protest. “I can, I can, uh, um, you can face away from me and, uh, you know…”

Severa scowls. The soreness and aching in her chest is returning, slowly, and she is not in the mood for Lucina’s flustered antics, particularly after being told that she couldn’t take any more medicine for the rest of the day. She answers Lucina by slamming shut the door to her room.

Lucina waits at the door, patiently. She can hear through Severa’s door a shuffle of clothes, mutters, grunts of pain or growls of frustration – she can’t quite tell. Then, at last, the door opens again.

“I can’t…I can’t do it.” Severa thrusts the box of bandages into Lucina’s hand, though ‘box’ no longer seems accurate. The packaging has been torn open and the bandages drape in a messy tangle of twists and knots over Lucina’s hands. Lucina notes her wrist brace, no doubt the source of the difficulty.

Lucina blushes and stammers out an apology. “S-so I can help?”

“Fine, but don’t be weird about it,” Severa growls, stalking back into her room. She sits on the futon, cross-legged, and allows Lucina to tug the towel down and expose her back. Lucina makes a concerted effort not to gaze at anything but her back, but even so she can’t help but stare.

Severa is thin, the ridges of her spine clearly pronounced through her skin, her shoulder blades sharp and angular, trailing down into a solid, muscular back. This was a girl used to physical labor. Her back is bruised, the skin warped and dark in places, a purple verging on black in others. One particularly nasty bruise below her left shoulder blade is uncomfortably footprint-shaped.

“Are you gonna help, or just look at me?” Severa snaps, bringing Lucina back to attention.

“S-sorry!” Lucina stammers, handing Severa the tail of a bandage. “It needs to be wrapped tight, so it’s going to hurt a little bit, okay?”

“Whatever.” Severa passes the bandage back around her other side and Lucina takes it from her. “Ow! Fuck!”

“Sorry! I told you it needs to be tight!”

“Fucking hurts,” Severa grumbles.

“Um, it’d be a little easier if you sat up straight,” Lucina suggests meekly.

Severa lets out a groaning sigh and begrudgingly sits up, trying very hard not to reveal that her disdainful act actually filled her chest with so much pain that she sees stars. She blinks rapidly, trying to clear her watering eyes before Lucina thinks she’s crying.

Rewrapping her bandages is a slow and painful process, but they manage to accomplish it together. Lucina helps her pull on a shirt, and at last, Severa is at least somewhat presentable. She puts her hair up with great difficulty, lacking fine motor skills in one of her hands, but before long she looks just about back to her old self, barring the wrist brace.

 

-

 

Lucina fixes the two of them a simple lunch and they sit together in the living room, Severa reading her book as Lucina works on her homework.

“Are you going back to school?” Lucina asks, sitting upright.

Severa, slouched on the couch, shrugs. “I dunno.”

“You’re still suspended until next week, right?”

Severa nods.

“If you want, I could maybe, um…uh, help you. With your work, I mean. If you want to catch up.”

“I told you. I don’t know if I’m going back.”

“Yeah, I just mean…if you want to.” The room devolves back to an awkward silence, the only sound the scratching of pencil on paper and the rustling of turning pages.

“You must really like that book, huh?” Lucina asks, trying again.

“Yeah.” Severa turns a page.

“What’s it about? It looked like a romance novel.”

Severa closes it and tosses it to Lucina, who fumbles the catch and lets it fall to the floor.

Before she manages to pick it up, Severa sits upright and looks out the window, her eyes wide. “Shit.”

“What is it?” Lucina gets to her feet. Her parents aren’t supposed to be home until much, much later – and the hatchback pulling into the driveway isn’t one she recognizes.

“Fuck!” Severa hisses, frustration spilling out of her voice. “Fuck!”

“What’s wrong? Who is that?”

“It’s Sister Maria,” Severa says breathlessly. She stumbles towards Lucina and grasps her arm. “Please. Please tell her I’m not here. Tell her you haven’t seen me. Please.”

“Okay,” Lucina nods, pushing her off gently. “Go sit in the kitchen and wait, okay? I’ll talk to her.”

The doorbell rings and Lucina opens the door. “Hello?”

“Hello, young lady,” Sister Maria says, her voice friendly. Something about Severa’s desperation sets Lucina on edge, and Maria’s friendliness seems to be a thin veneer over something more sinister. “Are your parents home?”

“No, they aren’t.” Lucina stands in the cracked door, arms folded, trying to block as much of the view into the house as she can. “Can I help you?”

“You can, actually,” Maria says, furrowing her brow. “We were wondering if you had seen Severa recently.”

“I thought she was still in the hospital.”

Maria frowns. “That’s odd. I figured such a close friend would definitely have known that she left.”

“We aren’t close,” Lucina explains hastily. “I mean, we aren’t even friends. I had never spoken to her until about a week ago.”

“And yet you visited her every day she was in the hospital. And you were her last visitor on the day before she disappeared.”

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you,” Lucina scowls, her patience running thing. This woman should stop beating around the bush and be out with it. “I visited her yesterday morning, and haven’t seen her since.”

Maria hums thoughtfully, making use of her height to look around Lucina and peer into the living room beyond. Lucina shifts, trying to block her again. For a brief moment, Lucina’s heart stops. The book is still sitting on the carpet, cover up. If this woman knows Severa, she could probably identify it as hers. Lucina shifts, taking a step forward and trying to urge Sister Maria back. “If that’s it, I’d appreciate if you went about your day. I have homework to do, so…”

“Of course,” Sister Maria smiles, and something about her face makes Lucina’s skin crawl. Her teeth, maybe. “You are such a diligent student. It should be a shame for you to get caught up with the likes of Severa.”


	7. Chapter 7

Lucina stares across the cafeteria, looking to the small, empty table crammed in the far corner, near the trash cans. Severa sits alone, slowly and half-heartedly picking at the food on her tray. She had declined a homemade packed lunch, though Lucina got the feeling she was doing so out of a desire to not be any more of a burden. Instead she’s peeling the plastic from a prepackaged sandwich and picking out half the ingredients, leaving her with essentially just bread and meat. In the past, when Lucina noticed her sitting alone, she had always seemed to give off a cool, aloof, and mysterious vibe. Now that Lucina has gotten to know her, though, it’s almost painful to watch. It wasn’t cool detachment so much as intense and likely self-imposed isolation. No one even bothers to approach, choosing to cram into full tables rather than share with her.

It makes Lucina’s chest twinge. She’s clearly having trouble eating with her wrist brace.

“What’re you looking at?” Cynthia asks, dropping into the seat at Lucina’s side.

“I’m going to invite Severa to sit with us.”

“What? No!” Cynthia protests. “You can’t!”

Lucina frowns. “What? Why not?”

“Oh my god, didn’t I tell you?” Cynthia jams a straw into her juice box. “She and I like, hate each other. I mean, she hates me, and I just think she’s a bitch.”

“What do you mean? Did something happen?”

Cynthia shrugs while taking a drink. “She was in my gym class last semester and we butted heads a lot. She’s had it out for me ever since.”

“Well, I’m sure-“

“Nope. It’s an ‘insults-on-sight’ sorta relationship. She’s my arch-nemesis.”

Lucina furrows her brow and looked around the table. There are only a few open seats that generally didn’t get filled, so…”Fine,” she said at last. “Then I’ll go sit with her.”

“I don’t get it,” Kjelle finally spoke up. “What’s up with you? Do you feel some obligation to be her friend since she lives with you now?”

“How do you know about that?” Lucina scowls.

Kjelle laughs. “Lucina, everyone knows about it. Morgan’s been telling people all week.”

“What did I tell you?” Lucina snaps, grabbing the back of Morgan’s chair and sliding him back from his lunch table. “What did I say?”

“Uh…wash my hands after I use the bathroom?”

Lucina scowls and cuffs him lightly. “No! I said not to tell people!”

Morgan holds up his hands defensively. “I didn’t! I just told Nah! …And Owain and Yarne and Inigo and-“

“Who didn’t you tell?!”

Morgan thinks about the question. “Brady. I think Owain told him. Oh, and Gerome! But Inigo told him.”

“So literally half the school knows by now, no doubt.”

Morgan nods, “Yeah, pretty much. In all honesty, I told Nah as soon as you came back to school, so…”

“WHY?”

“I thought you just wanted to wait to tell them! I assumed you already had!”

“So everyone’s known for a week?!”

“Eh…two,” Morgan estimates.

Lucina stalks off, fuming. She wasn’t embarrassed to be living with Severa. Honestly, she wasn’t. But…she had hoped to keep it private, at least for a bit. At least until everything got sorted out. It was only temporary, after all, and that little detail surely eluded the rumor mill. Lucina dreaded hearing what people were saying about her now that she firmly cemented herself into Severa’s social circle of two. Social line, rather.

She sits heavily at Severa’s side, letting her tray clatter to the table.

Severa looks up. “What do you want?”

“I want to eat with you,” Lucina says plainly, resuming her lunch.

“Why?”

“Because…” Lucina stops herself before she utters the phrase _I like you_ . She hadn’t meant it in _that_ way, but who knows how Severa would take it. “Because being alone sucks. I know it does. And now I know you’re as bad as everyone says you are.”

“People are going to talk.”

“Let them.”

 

-

 

“Hey.”

Severa doesn’t look up; she continues awkwardly rearranging the books in her locker, trying to withdraw her math textbook without topping the haphazard stack of books that bury it. It’s hard enough with two hands, but her fractured wrist can do little but weakly hold the locker door open.

“Hey.”

Severa continues to ignore the voice, kneeling to slip the book into her backpack. Well, not her backpack, seeing as hers had been torn to shreds two weeks prior. It was Lucina’s old one, meaning it was regrettably bright orange, and covered top to bottom in pins and stickers. Severa winces, the plastering of bright cartoon characters and cheesy slogans a little too much for her. But it’s a backpack, which means it’s what she has to make do with.

In fact, most of her attire was borrowed – Lucina’s acid-washed jeans, and a borrowed sweater. She had somehow managed to pull something remotely fashionable out of Lucina’s nightmarish wardrobe, and Robin’s robust supply of makeup helped a little.

“I’m talking to you, bitch!” The voice comes again, angry, and Severa stands up as her locker door is slammed shut, knocking her aside.

“What do you want, Clarisse?!” Severa finally snaps. She tightens her grip on her backpack and hunches her shoulders defensively to examine her foe. It’s a girl, tall and blonde; one of the sporty-spice lackeys that have been taunting her ever since she started hanging out with Lucina. Severa holds no higher disdain than that which she holds for jocks.

“You been hanging out with Lucina after school?”

Severa scowls. “Why would I?”

“She hasn’t been coming to practice.”

“So? It’s not my job to watch her.”

“Listen, you little rat,” Clarisse towers over Severa, pressing a finger into her chest and pushing her back. It’s meant to just be intimidation, but the touch sends pain rippling through Severa’s chest. “This is my last chance at making it to states before graduation. If we don’t make it because Lucina is too busy doing…” she gestures angrily. “Whatever the fuck you two are doing with your sorry ass, I’m going to fucking kill you.”

In truth, Severa knew exactly what Lucina had been doing – they had been taking walks together after school, usually in silence. Lucina had read that gentle, low-impact exercise would be good for her chest or something. But she sure as fuck wasn’t going to let this asshole know that.

“Maybe you should just be better at running.”

“What did you say to me?” Clarisse hisses, pressing herself closer. Close enough that Severa can smell her cheap perfume.

The bell rings and Severa makes her move, bolting away from Clarisse and trying to block out the string of insults being hurled her way. She can still hear Clarisse’s voice, sharp in her ears. And snippets of another voice.

“Come on, Clarisse, leave her alone!”

“What do you care?”

“You’re being a jerk!”

 

 

The second bell rings loudly in her ears, drowning out the voices and making Severa dizzy. Or is it her stomach that’s feeling that way? She rounds a corner and presses her face into her hands, trying to still her trembling hands. She squeezes her eyes shut and tries to down out the influx of sound, but a voice cuts through.

“Hey.”

Severa looks up, ready for a fight. Her bones still ache and her head rings, but that hasn’t stopped her before and it won’t stop her now. Her hands curl into fists.

“Just ignore her,” a surprising figure is standing at the locker at Severa’s side. “Clarisse is a jerk.”

“Yeah,” Severa mutters, straightening up, realizing her moment of weakness has a witness. “What do you care, Cynthia?”

“Because I’m on the track team too, and all Clarisse does is gripe and moan and blame others. And,” Cynthia shuts her locker and leans in closer to Severa. “Between you and me, she isn’t even very good.”

Severa crosses her arms and fumes. Cynthia sighs.

“Look, Severa. I’m…I’m sorry about last semester, okay? I…I shouldn’t have been like that towards you. If I’m being honest, I still don’t really trust you, but…if you’re good enough to be Lucina’s friend, you’re good enough for me. So…friends?” Cynthia extends a hand out and Severa stares at her.

She’s a full head shorter than Severa, her brown pigtails framing her goofy grin, her eyes at once mischievous and kind. _No wonder Lucina likes her_ , Severa thinks, taking her hand.

Before Cynthia has a chance to bounce away, Severa stops her. “Uh…thanks. For…sticking up for me.”

“No problem,” Cynthia flashes her a grin before bounding off into the hallway.

 

-

 

A knock at the door brings Severa’s attention away from her book. She leaves a thumb to mark her page and looks up. Another knock.

That would be Lucina, then. “Yeah?” Severa sits up in bed and leans back.

Lucina ducks in and shuts the door behind her.

“Going somewhere?” Severa asks, somewhat sarcastically. Lucina is her idea of ‘dressed nicely’, which, while unfashionable, isn’t her usual disaster self. And her purse and shoes hint towards some destination.

“Actually, uh…” Lucina begins uncertainly, tapping her foot. “I was about to head out to see my therapist.”

“So?”

“I wanted to ask if it was okay if I talk to her about you.”

Severa scowls. “Why would I care?”

“I don’t know. I just wanted to make sure you were okay with it.”

Severa shrugs and turns back to her book. “It’s not like I can stop you.”

Lucina sighs and sits on Severa’s futon. “I’m…I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care.” She turns a page, trying to focus on the words in front of her rather than her quickening pulse.

“You could come with me, if you want.”

Severa glares. “What, so you can parade me around in front of her? Show off your new freak friend?”

“Severa…” Lucina pleads. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“I don’t care,” Severa repeats. “Do whatever you want, just leave me alone.”

Lucina sits in silence on the side of her bed for a moment, motionless under Severa’s fiery glare. She opens her mouth to speak, then sighs. It was pointless, particularly if Severa was in a mood like this. Lucina gets to her feet and crosses to the door. “Okay. See you later, I guess.” She stops before leaving.

“Um...Severa, I meant to ask you something the other day. Who is that from?” Lucina points at the top of the dresser, upon which Severa had set her old folded card.

Severa’s glare darkens. “It was sent to the orphanage. They think my dad sent it.”

“Your...dad?”

“Shut up!” Severa snaps. “Shut up, you fucking moron! Just go! Leave me the fuck alone!”

“I just wanted to kn-”

“Well it’s none of your fucking business!”

“I just-”

Severa pushes herself off her bed angrily and snatches up the card and tucks it into the pages of her book. “Fuck off.”

“Stop snapping at me!” Lucina shouts back. “It was just a question, god!” She whirls in an impatient fury and makes her exit.

The door slams behind her and Severa stares at the painted white frame.


	8. Chapter 8

Severa slips out quietly, making use of her small frame to scramble between the black poles of wrought-iron that compose the decorative fence. It hurts, just a little – the squeeze is too tight, and her knees are scuffed up from falling on the pavement, and as she stumbles out the other side of the fence she falls, bringing a fresh sting to her knees and her palms. She touches her palms, checking for blood. Blood makes her panic, makes her breath sharpen and her eyes water, and blood fills her with fear. Even small amounts, trickling from scrapes or seeping from papercuts. She is eleven, and everything feels so large and scary.

She hates the orphanage – its drab colors, its wrought-iron and its towers of vaulted stone, its paneled windows and stained-glass, and the sisters’ whispering as she passes. She hates going to services on Sundays, and she hates the other children. So she leaves.

She slips out of the iron fence, she falls, and she wipes her palms on the grass by the sidewalk. It’s a hot late-summer day, and her feet sting on the blistering sidewalk. But she doesn’t look back. She knows the route by heart. She doesn’t know the street names – not because she can’t read, but because the signs are too high to read, or tucked into trees growing on the street corners, or overgrown with vines. It’s easier to remember landmarks – take the sidewalks north, until the gas station. An attendant once asked her what she was doing by herself, but she assured him she had somewhere to be. He had shrugged.

From the gas station, left. More blocks. More sweltering sidewalks, out of the town and towards the county. Even along the fields, there were sidewalks. Severa was too young to appreciate the public infrastructure, but the paved concrete is the very same that Lucina’s feet would traverse over and over years in the future.

But Severa is eleven, and lonely, and journeys on, out past the school, past crooked telephone poles leaning like crooked fingers over the edges of fields nearing harvest. She crosses the bridge over the river gorge – it’s an old thing, a truss bridge built a hundred years ago, its metal beams painted and repainted and peeling and repainted and peeling, leaving them a shade of rusty green. She stops to rest, watching the water far below through gaps in the bridge’s boards. She’s almost there.

The church is built into a hillside, wrapped on all sides by trees. Along the hillside is a field of green. The cemetery is small, all things considered, and easy to navigate. Severa knows the way by heart. The cool grass feels soothing on her burnt and callused feet, and she pads around stones and past flowers left to dry in the hot August sun. She wipes her eyes, blinking. It’s a warm evening, a breeze stroking her like a soft hand to wipe her cheeks. She reaches her destination and kneels, and she can no longer stop the tears.

She had tried talking, a few times. She had seen such things on television or read about it in books. The counselor at the orphanage recommended it, too, but it always just made her feel worse. It made her throat close up, and her chest pound and ache, and she could never stutter out more than a few words before dissolving into a fit of tears. She had taken to bringing books – having things to say made it a little easier. She would stumble over the words, true, but she would persevere, her weak and shaky voice painting a messy and cracked portrait of characters and settings, of whatever world captured her passions of the day.

But this evening, she cannot find the energy. She curls up against the headstone, resting her tired body in the grass, knowing that her hair is getting dirty.

“P-please,” she wraps her arms around herself and squeezes. “I…m-m-mommy, I…I m-miss y-you, I…” She blinks and wipes her tears. The salt stings her scraped palms, and she whimpers. The grass is cool, shaded by the headstone, and she closes her eyes, trying to imagine she’s not as alone as she feels. The breeze caresses her softly, and in time the world slips away.

Harsh voices wake her up, and she tries to wipe the grogginess from her eyes. She’s stiff. Sitting up hurts, and the dusty sunset-red of the sky above is blotted out by two black silhouettes.

“Just WHAT do you think you’re doing?” The voice is harsh and accusatory, and Severa’s heart leaps into her throat. A hand grasps her.

“We can’t keep doing this, Severa. You know we can’t.”

The hand roughly yanks her to her feet, pulling her through the veil of time and memory, through the inky blackness of night and into a sweat-soaked futon in the pitch-black guest bedroom in a house Severa doesn’t know.

 

-

 

Severa slips out of bed quietly. She pads across the carpet to her door and carefully unlatches it. The hallway is dark and silent, a corridor of shut doors and shadows shifting in the meager light. The moon shines through a window, casting a bluish haze over the hall. Severa walks slowly, quietly, deliberately, wiping her eyes as she goes. Attempting to bury any evidence of how she’s spent her last hour. Lucina’s door is unlocked, as expected.

Lucina’s room is still a mess, and the intervening weeks had done nothing if not made it even messier. A track uniform is now draped across her desk, and a pair of shorts is crumpled on the windowsill. Severa steps carefully around Lucina’s things, trying not to step on books or clothes or whatever knickknacks are strewn about.

Lucina is asleep, thankfully. Her back is facing the door and one arm is wrapped around her pillow, the other extended towards the wall. Severa stops, watching her sleep. Her breathing is even and measured, the rise and fall of her chest noticeable even in the dark. Severa stares sadly, blinking back tears that refuse to leave.

Why? Why was Lucina so kind to her? Why did she even tolerate her? She was no one – worthless, unwanted, unloved. The only person who had ever loved her was long-dead.

Severa whimpers and wipes her eyes. She chokes back a gasp and crawls into Lucina’s bed, curling up against her back and pressing her forehead against her spine. She holds herself tight, tight enough to hurt, tight enough to make her ribs ache and her wrist spark with pain, and she presses herself against Lucina and fights a wave of tears.

Even so, her touch and her gasping breath rouse Lucina to wakefulness.

“S-Severa?” Lucina asks softly, not turning around – the twin bed is cramped as it is, and movement is difficult.

Severa chokes and gasps, grinding her teeth together. “P-please,” she manages to whimper. “I’m s-sorry. I’m-I’m sorry, I…” Her voice is cut off by a sharp inhale.

Lucina nods into her pillow and scoots towards the wall, giving Severa more space that she fails to utilize, still pressing herself against Lucina’s back. She presses her face into her, letting the warmth of another body bleed into her.

Severa holds herself tightly and her tears stop, though she’s well aware that she’s resting in a wet patch on Lucina’s pillow. She squeezes her eyes shut and tries to regulate her breath, focusing on the rhythms of Lucina’s breathing, the steady and faint pulse in her chest, the scent of her hair, the breeze slipping through the open window, and Severa lets herself fall into the arms of sleep.

 

-

 

“And how was your day, honey?”

Lucina looks up from her dinner at her mother, finally proud to have something to report. “I got my math test back and I got a B minus!” she tries to make herself sound less excited than she actually is, but this is a new milestone for her – the first time she’s gotten a math test back that’s crossed the B threshold in literally years.

“Nerd,” Morgan scoffs into his drink. Lucina scowls.

“Wow,” Chrom says, genuinely impressed. “Good job!”

Robin smiles warmly at Lucina. “I’m very proud of you, honey. You must have studied very hard.”

“Uh, actually,” Lucina sets her fork down. “I couldn’t have done it without Severa’s help.”

That seems to surprise her parents. “Really?” Robin asks, politely but doubtfully.

“Yeah,” Lucina nods. “Turns out she’s really good at math stuff, and she’s been helping me out with my homework.”

“She hasn’t been _doing_ your homework for you, has she?” Chrom raises an eyebrow.

“What? Of course not!” Lucina replies. Then, under her breath. “I can barely get her to do her _own_ homework.”

“Speaking of, where is our…guest, tonight?” Robin asks, directing her question at Lucina and the empty seat next to her. “I haven’t seen her in a while.”

“She said she has a headache and wanted to rest,” Lucina lies, not knowing if it was the truth but hoping it was close. Truth be told, Severa had been shut up in her room for the better part of a day and had even skipped going to school. Ever since she and Lucina had slept together – _no_ , Lucina corrects herself. Ever since they had shared Lucina’s bed – _oh god it all just sounds like a euphemism_. She prayed her blush wouldn’t betray her thoughts. But ever since that night, Severa had been avoiding her.

“Oh,” Robin says plainly. “Is she…er, is she doing alright? With her injuries, I mean.”

“She had to go to the nurse’s office yesterday,” Morgan offered without prompting.

“She did?” Chrom asked.

Lucina kicked Morgan under the table and glared at him. She scowled, hoping she wouldn’t need to actually shush him for him to get the point across.

“Yeah,” Morgan plowed on regardless, an agent of chaos reveling in making family dinners hell for Lucina. “I didn’t see it, but she got hit by someone in the halls and collapsed.”

Robin frowned. “Lucina, did you know anything about this?”

“Yeah,” Lucina admitted. “She’s still concussed, so getting hit…” she trailed off, unsure how to finish her sentence.

“Should the teachers be doing something about this?” Robin asked. “If it’s such a consistent problem, you’d think-“

“I don’t know,” Lucina says, just loud enough to cut her mother off. _She just wants to be left alone._ And it was true – she did just want to be left alone, but she was so easily provoked – between her injuries, her magnetism for bullying, and her own fiery temper, she was hard to keep under control. Were it not for her concussion, she probably would have fought again and been suspended – or worse, expelled. As it was, she had spent lunch period wracked with nausea and a splitting headache in the nurse’s office.

“Look, can we just talk about something other than-“ Before Lucina can utter her name, Severa walks into the kitchen and crosses to the fridge. She looks exhausted, bags under her eyes and clothing askew. Even her hair is less tidily done, her usually immaculate twintails messy and lopsided. She’s barefoot, her bottom half pajamas and her top half still the shirt she wore to school. She opens the fridge as the family at the dinner table looks on in silence.

She kneels, fishes out a bag of shredded cheese out of the fridge, and stands in front of the open door to eat.

Chrom and Robin make eye contact with each other. Morgan stifles a giggle. Lucina looks on with curiosity.

Having evidently decided after several bites that yes, this is indeed the dinner she wants, Severa shuts the fridge door. Robin speaks first.

“Would…would you like to sit with us?”

Severa chews a mouthful of shredded cheese thoughtfully then swallows.

“We could…put that cheese _in_ something, if you want?”

Lucina nods at Severa and raises her eyebrows, trying to indicate her desire for her to come and sit at dinner like a normal person. Severa’s brow wrinkles – it’s not a scowl, she’s too polite for that. But her slow trudge to the dinner table and her dejected expression make it perfectly clear that she is here at Lucina’s behest, and nothing else. She sets her bag of shredded cheese next to her on the table.

“I’ll…get you a plate,” Robin nods, standing and crossing to the cabinet.

For a brief moment, Severa considers pouring the cheese onto her plate and just eating that, but Lucina stops her, taking her plate and portioning out food from the serving platters in the center of the table. She doesn’t miss a beat, and Severa hates her guts for it.

Stupid Lucina. Stupid Lucina and her stupid smile and her stupid goofy hair. Severa pokes at her food with disinterest.

“How was your day, Severa?” Robin asks politely.

Severa looks up.

“Did you…did you have a good day at school?”

“I didn’t go.”

“Oh? Are you feeling alright?”

Severa sighs and slumps back in her chair, folding her arms over her chest. “Well, I woke up this morning and puked while getting dressed, so what do _you_ think?”

Robin frowns. “Are you sick?”

“She’s concussed,” Lucina explains again. “It can make her nauseous, dizzy. _Irritable_.” She says this last word with emphasis, nudging Severa under the table.

“Still?” Chrom raised an eyebrow. “I would have thought you were doing better.”

“Well, I’m sorry I can’t heal faster,” Severa grumbles. She sets down her fork and contents herself with picking at her wrist brace.

“I didn’t mean-“ Chrom tries to apologize.

“Then what _did_ you mean?” Severa snaps, clearly restraining herself from lashing out physically.

Lucina watches her with curiosity, and with some degree of pity. It had been three weeks – almost a month of Severa sharing their home, eating their food, sleeping on their furniture. Nearly a month of Severa sharing her clothes, sharing her homework, a month of taking walks and a month of eating quietly together at lunch. And Severa remained unchanged – still bitter, still angry, still alone. She had rejected all calls to fit in – she had tried sitting with them through a single movie one evening, but halfway through she got up and wordlessly returned to her room.

After a few bites of food, Severa has evidently decided she’s had enough. She gets up from the table and leaves, not bothering to push her chair in or clean up her plate.

Morgan looks from Lucina to his parents. He opens his mouth to speak and Lucina digs an elbow into his ribcage.

“Ow! What was that for?!”

“You were going to say something rude,” Lucina glares.

“No, I wasn’t!”

“No? Then what were you going to say?” When he doesn’t respond, Lucina scowls. “Oh, what? What’s that? Nothing, because you were going to say something mean.”

“Lucina, please.” Her mother frowns.

“Me?” Lucina cries out, incredulous. “Why am _I_ being singled out?”

“She’s your guest,” Morgan mutters under his breath.

“I…” Lucina falters, realizing she’s outnumbered. She tries to speak before giving up. She shoves her chair in and storms out of the dining room, fuming.  

 

 

She stalks up the stairs in a huff, her head pounding from clenching her teeth together in anger. A sound from Severa’s room shatters her anger in an instant.

The first thing she hears is a whimper, a pitiful little sob that’s quickly stifled. Lucina freezes, her chest catching. Then another whimper, this time accompanied by a short whine. Lucina takes a step and presses her ear to Severa’s door.

On the other side of the door, Severa struggles to breathe. She clutches her hands around her blanket, trembling fingers clinging with desperation to the fabric. She tries to inhale but she can’t. Her chest aches, her eyes sting, and she gropes wildly for her pillow. She manages to grab it and wraps her arms tightly around it, so tightly her arms tremble. She buries her face in the soft bedding, trying to muffle her sobs. She chokes, unable to breathe, and lets slip a painful gasp. The sudden exhale hurts and she can’t compensate. Inhaling hurts, and she can only take in short breaths. She lurches, blinking tears from her eyes.

She’s drowning. Her lungs are weak and strained, her eyes are flooded with salty wetness, and she shudders weakly. She’s drowning. The dark void of her room is swallowing her up, the soft sunset light filtering through her blinds blotted out by shifting shadows and darkness, an oppressive air that pushes down on her, pushes the air from her lungs, squeezes the life out of her. She holds her pillow tight, in trembling hands, and she intakes sharp, painful breaths.

“Hey,” a soft voice draws her attention and she looks up, brushing her filter of tears away to look at the door.

“L-Lu-Luci-Luc-“ Severa stammers, her chest refusing to stabilize.

Lucina’s eyes widen and she rushes to Severa, kneeling on the futon at her side. “Severa? What’s wrong?”

“I…” Severa gasps and pants, reaching a trembling hand for Lucina. “I…I c-can’t…I c-can’t b-breathe,” she manages to choke out. “I…”

“Shh, it’s okay,” Lucina whispers, wrapping her arms tightly around Severa. “It’s okay. It’s okay, I’m here. You’re safe.”

She holds Severa tight and tries to remember what her parents do for her when she’s panicking. She presses Severa’s head into her shoulder and rocks her gently. “It’s okay. Shh, it’s okay. I’m here.”

“I-I-I…” Severa stammers, her tears staining Lucina’s shirt. “I c-can’t-“

“Shh…don’t say anything,” Lucina shushes her, holding her body flush against herself. She runs a cautious hand through Severa’s hair, stroking her messy twintails and lightly dancing across the back of her head. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

Severa gasps and clutches Lucina so tightly her ribs ache. She whines, the sound sending a twinge through Lucina’s chest.

“Hey, shh. Shh…” Lucina wraps her arm around the small of Severa’s back and takes the other to cup her face. “Look at me. Okay? Look at me.”

Severa blinks and the motion sends tears down her cheeks. She nods weakly.

“Okay. Try counting to ten. One.”

Severa squeezes her eyes shut and takes in quick breaths.

Lucina presses her forehead against Severa’s and speaks calmly and carefully. “It’s okay. I’m here. Okay? Two.”

Severa nods, her movement weak and shaky. She whimpers out a hushed _t-t-t-two._

Lucina smiles, trying to disguise her twisting gut. “Okay, three. Deep breaths. Come on.”

They sit huddled on the futon, bodies pressed flush together, Severa’s staggered breaths counting off, slowly, her shaky voice struggling to follow Lucina’s lead. As always, Lucina remains unfazed, unfaltered by the girl unraveling before her. She sits at her side and holds her, rocks her gently, even as Severa’s breathing stabilizes and returns to regularity, punctuated only by the odd hiccup. Severa buries her face in Lucina’s shoulder.

“It’s okay,” Lucina says again, running a hand through Severa’s hair. She whispers the assurance again and again, determined to say the words even if Severa refuses to believe them.


	9. Chapter 9

A knock at the door stirs Severa from her slumber. She had been dreaming again, and for once it was pleasant. She still saw her mother’s face in dreams, sometimes, and a return to the waking world from a dream like that was nothing short of a dagger thrust into her chest. Her ribs were doing better, but now she felt nothing but an omnipresent ache, a muted pain that she couldn’t quite identify the source of. For some reason, watching Lucina and her family made it worse. Ribs must be a strange bone, she decides.

Even despite her healing ribs and the decrease in migraines, Severa still spent most of her time sleeping – at least, she tried to. So it was little wonder she had no tolerance for being dragged out of bed at eight in the goddamn morning to go on some fucking walk with Lucina. She’d have been more receptive if she could have at least done her hair first.

“Oh, come on. Are you just going to make that pouty face the whole time?”

“It’s _Saturday_ , Lucina. Why the fuck can’t I sleep in?”

“It’s good for you!” Her chipper voice made Severa even angrier. How could she even be this awake?! Why couldn’t a _normal_ girl have taken her in?

 _Because any normal kid wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole_ , Severa’s brain reacts without thinking. She furrows her brow and kicks at a rock on the side of the road.

Lucina had taken to bringing Severa along her running routes, insisting that the exercise would help her heal and strengthen. Severa was loath to admit that sometimes – just sometimes – it was nice.

The spring sun beats down on the asphalt, feeling more like summer every day. Severa’s sneakers were her own – Lucina dragged her to a store to buy some new clothing, shoes included. Severa despised them – _nothing_ was less fashionable than neon-drenched running shoes.

“My birthday’s tomorrow, you know,” Lucina said idly.

“I know,” Severa says. She did know – she had seen it on Lucina’s calendar, Morgan had mentioned it at dinner, and Severa was pretty sure she had seen some of the presents Robin had gotten for her. The knee socks were…tasteless, but Severa had expected that by this point. Every time Lucina expressed interest in something when they were out shopping, it was inevitably the most ostentatiously terrible thing in the shop.

“You gonna get me anything?” Lucina teased, bouncing in front of Severa and walking backwards to make her shit-eating grin readily apparent.

“With what money.”

Lucina pouted. “Aw, come on, Sev. I’m just teasing.” She returns to Severa’s side, stretching out and cracking her shoulders. They continue walking in silence. It’s a hot morning, and Lucina is taking them out from the suburbs towards the less-populated sections of town, and the road winds them past fields and through dense groves of trees. Severa remains silent, her eyes fixed on the patch of asphalt in front of her, unwilling to lift her gaze to meet Lucina’s.

“What do _you_ want, then?” Lucina asks at last.

Severa frowns. “What?” Her feet grind to a halt just as the road becomes a truss bridge over a deep river gorge. She turns.

“For my birthday, I want you to smile. What could make that happen?”

Something in Severa snaps.

It was all to fucking saccharine. It made her sick, and it wasn’t just the nausea and soreness from walking – there was something in Lucina’s voice that broke her, some blade against the last fraying threads of Severa’s patience. Maybe it was the morning heat, or maybe it was the pain medication, or the pressure of her wrist brace against her skin, or the way the wind kept knocking her bangs in front of her eyes, or maybe it was Lucina’s stupid voice and her stupid smile and the way she looked so cool even with sweat dripping from her brow and soaking the hem of her shirt, and the way the sunlight sparkled on her bright blue eyes like fucking _sapphires_ or some inane poetic bullshit that made Severa want to step into fucking traffic.

Lucina must catch Severa’s darkened expression, because she steps forward and reaches out a hand. “S-Severa? Are you-“

“Fuck you,” Severa snaps, smacking Lucina’s hand away and clenching her own into fists. “ _Fuck_ you.” She repeats it, through gritted teeth and lips twisting into a grimace. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

Lucina takes a step back, startled. “W-what?”

Severa turns on her, her eyes ablaze with anger. “What do you think this is, huh? What?” She pushes on Lucina’s chest with her good hand, shoving her backwards. “Do you think I’m just some stupid bullshit project for you to work on? Is that what this is?”

“What? What are you talking about?” Lucina asks. Her heart sinks. Severa is in one of her moods, it seems, and no amount of talking her down seemed to be effective. It was just worsened by the fact that they were a mile or so from home, from a place where she could shut herself up in her room and keep the world at bay.

“What’s _wrong_ with you?” Severa snaps. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“N-nothing?” Lucina asks, uncertain where Severa is going with this. “I mean, anxiety and-“

“Shut up, shut up!” Severa snarls. “God, just _shut UP_ for _once_ !” She raises her voice so sharply a bird in a nearby tree takes to flight. She stomps away, ranting as she tries to keep her distance from Lucina. “It’s _something¸_ right? Is this for a project? College applications, huh? Think it’ll look better if you’ve done some _charitable_ work, taken in a needy kid or some shit?!” She kicks a rock on the side of the road. “Because that’s the only fucking reason I can see that you’d give a damn about me.” She whips around and stops back towards Lucina, eyes bright and fiery. “I’m so sick of it. Your idiot brother, and your stupid dad and your stupid face, and your stupid fucking voice that make me want to die every time you talk, which is _all the time_ because you never just shut the fuck up!”

Severa stumbles, her foot catching on the misalignment between the sidewalk and the bridge, and she lashes out in frustration, kicking the metal railing.

“I just want to be left alone!” she whirls, her hair like trails of blood through the air. “Don’t you understand? I just want everyone to leave me the fuck alone!” She stalks away from Lucina, angrily scraping her shoes along the sidewalk. Lucina follows at a cautious distance, but Severa only reaches the midpoint of the bridge before stopping.

Severa grips the handrail tightly and stares out at the water rushing below. Were the circumstances different, it would be a beautiful morning – the sun sparkling on the eddies of swirling current, the rocky cliffside banks on each side bordered with thick groves of trees, and a girl collapsing into herself. Her hands are trembling even as she holds the rail, and with each blink Lucina can see stray tears track down her cheeks.

“Severa?” Lucina asks softly, stopping at her side. She reaches out a hand to Severa’s shoulder and gets no response.

“Just…just go away,” Severa squeezes her eyes shut.  

“What’s wrong?”

Lucina can see Severa’s knuckles go white on the cold metal rail. She turns in fury.

“You don’t fucking _get it_ , do you?!” Severa shouts, her voice sharp in the quiet morning air. “Of course you don’t, how could you?!” She takes a step back and wraps her arms around herself. “How could you possibly understand what it’s like?”

She tries to snarl but what comes out is more of a pitiful whimper. “What it’s like to not…belong. To not have _anyone_ ! You have your family, and all your friends at school, and your stupid track friends, and, and-“ her breaths come quickly and spastically. “And I have _NO ONE!_ Nobody wants me, and nobody _cares_ about me, don’t you get it?! You can’t possibly understand what it’s like, to wake up in pain every day, to wake up in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar house, to wake up and see…all of you! Just living your lives, and…” An realization hits her like a brick to the back of her skull. An emotion she had been unable to place. The strange, dull ache in her chest that filled her with pain every morning she woke up in a home that wasn’t hers.

 _Jealousy_. To see Lucina, loved, adored, cared for. Happy and healthy. She squeezes her eyes shut.

Lucina can see her fingernails digging into her arms, deep enough to draw blood. “I just…” The sharpness in her voice melts away, the anger bleeding out to be replaced with a plea. “I just want to be left alone.” She lifts a hand to her face and wipes an eye with her palm. “I just…”

“Severa…” Lucina stays still, her voice comforting but her stance firm.

“I’m…” Severa wipes her other eye and turns back to the river, leaning heavily on the railing. “I’m sorry. I just…I think I just need some space.”

Lucina nods and takes a cautious step towards Severa, resting a gentle hand on her wrist. “Are you sure?”

Severa nods. “Y-yeah. I’ll…I’ll be okay.”

Lucina gives a soft squeeze before slipping away. “You have a spare key, right? And you know the way back?”

Another nod.

 

-

 

“No Severa?” Robin remarks as Lucina walks into the kitchen, sans her shadow.

Lucina shrugs and opens the fridge to fish out a Gatorade. “She said she needed some space, so I’m giving her time to sort things out.” She opens the drink, chugs half of it in a single gulp, then slumps at the table in a fatigued heap.

Robin sits across from her, paging disinterestedly through a newspaper. Lucina can feel it – the distinct tension of someone who wants to say something. Robin isn’t really reading – she’s skimming the words, but glancing at her daughter with too much regularity to focus on the pages in front of her.

Lucina stares into her half-empty plastic bottle and begins nervously peeling the label with her thumbnail. It’s quiet – the only real sound is a lawnmower somewhere in the neighborhood and the ambient sounds of birdsong. Lucina’s stomach is tense.

“What?” she says at last, her voice breaking the silence.

Robin folds her newspaper and sets it on the table in front of her. “Luci, I…” she speaks softly. “I think we should probably talk.”

“About Severa,” Lucina finishes the sentence without looking up from her bottle.

Robin nods. “Yes, about Severa.”

“About…what, exactly?”

Robin purses her lips and furrows her brow. “How…how long did she plan on staying with us?”

“I thought dad was looking for a place for her.”

“He was, but…” Robin sighs. “It’s very difficult, finding somewhere for someone like Severa.”

Lucina’s gut twists. “’Someone like Severa’? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She needs help, Lucina, More help than we can give. I know your heart is in the right place, but…I’m just worried that having her stay here is doing more harm than good.”

“What do you mean?”

Robin takes a breath before speaking. “Has she seemed…off, recently? I must admit that I don’t know her well, and she certainly make a point of avoiding all of us except you.”

“I don’t think so,” Lucina shakes her head. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that Robin was right – Severa _was_ off. Something had happened – maybe it was the bullying, maybe it was in increased incidence of panic attacks, maybe it was…maybe it was the encroaching summer break. But she had been getting worse – more irritable, and that was saying something. And then there was this morning, not even half an hour ago, when a simple conversation had turned into a fit of angry crying. “Well…maybe,” Lucina corrects herself. “I guess.”

“Maybe it’s time we started talking about what we’re going to do with her.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe we should talk about taking her back to the orphanage.”

Lucina’s heart lurches, threatening to leap out of her chest. “N-no, we can’t do that.”

“I know she was unhappy there, but is she any better off here?”

 _Yes!_ Lucina wants to shout. _Of course she is! No one here hits her, no one leaves her alone in her suffering._ She gulps, hoping taking another drink will dispel her sudden unshakeable coldness. “Yes, I think she is.”

Robin sighs again, reaching to take Lucina’s hand and hold it. “I’m sorry, Luci. I know she’s your friend, but…she needs help. Real help.”

Lucina purses her lips and shakes her head. “She’s…she just…”

“Lucina, I found blood in the sink upstairs yesterday.”

“So?” Lucina isn’t sure who she’s trying to fool, because its not her mother. Maybe it’s herself. “You know Morgan’s always doing dumb stuff, maybe he…” She can’t even finish the sentence.

“Your father’s looking into psychiatric hospitals. We think she mi-“

“No!” Lucina cries. “No, that’s not…what kind of message would that tell her? That we’re just passing her along, giving up on her?”

“You know that’s not what I mean, Lucina. But she’s hurting herself. She needs real, professional help.”

 _She just needs someone that cares_. Lucina can’t bring herself to protest. She knows her mother is right – it’s a conversation they have had time and time again, about Lucina’s own past unwillingness to attend therapy, her own resistance to medication and professional help. It had been a matter of pride, for her – seeking help was admitting that something was wrong, and she refused to do that.

_Is Severa the same way? Does she not think she deserves help? Or…or is it just that help has never been offered to her?_

“Just…just think about it, okay Luci?”

“Yeah. Okay, mom.”

Robin gets up from the table, but before leaving stops to pull Lucina up from her seat into a tight albeit sweaty hug.

“Ew, I’m all gross!” Lucina protests, trying to push away.

“Come here,” Robin says sternly, though her motherly-voice never seemed to be quite as effective as she wanted it to be. She pulls Lucina against her chest and wraps her arms tightly around her. “I love you very, very much, Luci. I know she’s your friend, and I know you care about her, but…I just want what’s best for the both of you. Even if something seems difficult now, it could be beneficial in the long run. Okay?”

“Yeah,” Lucina grumbles, trying to wriggle out of the hug and grab her drink. “Can you let me go shower now? I’m probably getting your dress all sweaty.

Robin laughs.

 

-

 

“I don’t care. It’s still stupid,” Severa growls, kicking her feet out and resting them on a deck chair that Lucina had brought out to the backyard. It was a cool night, and Chrom decided to inaugurate the shift to summery weather with a fire in the firepit dug into the backyard. In theory, it was a beautiful evening for a cookout - in practice, it meant the five of them sitting around the stone-encircled firepit, shooting the shit and knocking back sodas (and beers for the adults) rather than having a “real” dinner.

“It’s not stupid, it’s a tradition!” Lucina protests.

“It’s dumb and stupid. Besides, it’s…” Severa falters, and even in the darkness Lucina can see her blush.

“It’s what?” Lucina grins, sipping her ginger ale. “For straight people?”

Severa scowls. “No! I mean, it _is_ , but that’s not why _I_ think it’s stupid. It’s just dumb to spend a shit-ton of money on a dress that you wear _once_ , and then go out to some stupid dance with all the idiots from school you see during the day.”

“So, I take it you _won’t_ be going to prom, Severa?” Robin takes a seat opposite the firepit and pulls back the tab on a beer.

Morgan reaches for it expectantly.

“You’re not going to like it,” Robin offers. Morgan takes a sip, makes a face and spits before washing it down with his soda.

“Blech,” he frowns. “Nasty.”

“Then why’d you drink it?” Lucina smacks his arm.

Chrom is the last to join the circle, having freshly washed his hands and changed his shirt from his soot-stained previous attire. “Robin, can you please stop giving our children alcohol?”

“What?” Robin asks. “I just think if they’re going to drink, it might as well be at home, right? Better here than Lucina getting wasted at some track party, right?”

“As if Lucina would _go_ to a party,” Morgan rolls his eyes, drawing another glare from Lucina.

“You know I get overstimulated,” Lucina snaps back. “Don’t be mean. I at least get _invited_.”

“I get invited to parties!”

“Name one! And my birthday tomorrow doesn’t count.”

“Your birthday last year.”

“A _real_ party.”

Severa sinks into her chair and adjusts her hoodie, tugging the hems of the sleeves up to her knuckles. It’s a little too big – yet again borrow from Lucina, whose torso was a little too lanky for the clothing to fit, and this one was emblazoned with what seemed to be an amusement part logo. Which would have been fine, had the ferris-wheel-and-roller-coast insignia not been embedded into the front of the hoodie in a horribly tacky knit fabric. Severa picks at the fraying edge.

Coming back home with puffy, red eyes and wet cheeks had been a little embarrassing, true, but she figured the space did her a bit of good. She still felt horrible, true – and watching Lucina talk and laugh with her family did little to dispel her heartache, but at least she was cleaned up, and she managed to sneak bandages for her arms after showering. Lucina had talked to her, too – about the blood in the sink, and Severa ruining the sleeves of one of Lucina’s shirts. A mixed bag of a day, all things considered.

“Catch,” Robin’s voice interrupts her thoughts, and a cold can drops into Severa’s lap. “You want one?”

“Beer?”

“Apparently _someone_ ,” Lucina says, glaring at her mother and snatching the can from Severa’s lap, “forgot we are _children_ and aren’t allowed to drink. I can go grab a soda from the fridge, though.”

She gets up to fetch a drink and Severa sits up, stretching her legs and looking across the crackling firepit at the family before her. Not her family, but _a_ family, and for a moment – just a moment – she forgets. She hears Morgan’s laughter at some dumb joke, she hears Chrom’s fatherly voice talk about repainting the deck or some such fatherly bullshit, and she fights back a sob.

“Are you okay, Severa?” Robin leans forward. “You look a little pale.”

Severa steels herself. “I’m fine,” she says quietly.

“Anyway!” Lucina returns and drops into her seat, tossing a can of coke at Severa. “Answer my mom’s question. No plans to go to prom this year?”

With a hiss and a pop, Severa opens her can and sips it cautiously. “I haven’t gone in the past. I don’t see why this year would be any different.”

“What if someone asked you?” Lucina asks.

Severa laughs. “Oh? Who would do that?”

“Just…hypothetically, I mean. If you were asked.”

“I’d say no.”

“Even if it were a girl?”

Morgan cackles. “Oh my _god,_ Luci-“

“Shh!” Robin hisses and stands up, grasping Morgan’s shoulder as she walks past. “Come on, I think I need some help getting the grill stuff ready. Honey, can you come help too?” She asks pointedly at Chrom.

“Do the two of you not have it?”

“Chrom,” Robin raises her eyebrows. “I _really_ think you should come help.”

“It’s just burgers, it’s not-“

“Dad!” Morgan shouts, through scarcely stifled laughter. “Oh my god, come help. I can’t carry all the stuff.”

Bewildered, Chrom gets to his feet and follows, leaving Lucina and Severa sitting by the fire in silence.

Severa sips her soda and considers picking up a stick to toss into the fire. Lucina coughs nervously.

“Your family’s weird as shit,” Severa says flatly, finally selecting a victim. She breaks off bits of the stick and tosses the fragments.

“Yeah, sorry,” Lucina rubs the back of her head. “They can be…like that.”

Silence falls again, punctuated only by the crackle and pop of the fire. Lucina shifts nervously in her seat. “Um…”

“What? Is the prom thing really such a big fucking deal? It’s just a dance.”

“W-well, no, but…I just…” Lucina wrings her hands. “I mean, if you wanted to go…with someone…I could…I mean, we could…not like, _as dates_ or whatever, but…”

Severa laughs harshly. “Yeah, that’s a good way to help your reputation. Hope you like homophobic slurs.”

“I mean, I…I don’t…” Lucina stumbles on her words. It must be that she’s too close to the fire, because her face feels like its melting. “I…I’m…” she takes a deep breath. “I don’t care about being seen as…as someone who likes girls.”

Severa looks up.

“I’m…because…um…because…I do. I mean, I am.”

Severa raises an eyebrow.

“Someone who likes girls, I mean.”

“A lesbian?”

“I…” Lucina shrugs. “I don’t know. Sure. Yeah. That.”

Severa laughs. “Oh my god, Lucina, are you having a stroke? Do you not know how sentences work anymore?”

“Hey!” Lucina protests. “Come on, this is hard for me!”

Severa finishes her soda and crumples the can. “Well, thanks for telling me.”

Lucina frowns. “Wait…really? That’s it? No incisive remark? No sarcasm?”

“You could get me another coke.”

Lucina smiles, a little relieved. “No prom, though?”

“Fuck no.”

 

 

Lucina is awake this time, when Severa comes to her. She’s staring at the ceiling, some uncertain and volatile mixture of excitement and read in her heart. She feels light, flighty – confessing it to someone, to _anyone_ felt like a rush, and to have Severa’s…well, not her support. But to have her confidence, to have her approval, felt good. She hadn’t formally come out to many people, though she knew Morgan knew – a stray remark about an underwear model on tv years ago made sure of that, and she suspected her mother knew as well. And her friends, to whom she had expressed no desire towards dating guys. But…it felt good, to say it out loud.

Those were the thoughts racing through her head when her door opened slightly.

She sits up slightly, propping herself up on her elbows. “Severa?” she whispers.

Severa smells like woodsmoke and cut grass as she crawls into Lucina’s bed, her motions hazy with the stolen alcohol running through her veins. Rather than curling up and going to sleep, she wraps an arm around Lucina and tugs her close.

“Severa, what’s-“

Lips press against her neck and she gasps, her heart thrumming so loud she fears her chest might break. “S-Severa…” The lips become teeth against her collarbone, then a tongue.

“S-Severa, wait…wait, you’re-“

“I’m not drunk,” Severa assures her, and it’s the truth – a bit of Dutch courage was all she felt necessary. “But I want this.”

“I…wait.” Lucina sits up and props herself against her beds’ headboard. Severa sits up as well, kneeling on the bed before her, watching curiously as Lucina digs a fingernail into her teeth. She pries a retainer off and pops it out of her mouth, looking for its case on her nightstand. Severa gapes.

“Oh my _god_ , you’re such a dork,” she hisses, as if annoyed with her own heart.

“I grind my teeth at night!” Lucina hisses back in protest.

“Okay, well tonight you can grind _me_ ,” Severa whispers, straddling Lucina’s legs and kissing her. She tastes sickly sweet, and for a brief moment before being consumed Lucina wonders if Severa remembered to brush her teeth – a question quickly lost in a rush of lips and teeth and skin against skin. She wraps her arms around the small of Severa’s back and tugs her close.

To feel Severa’s tongue press into her mouth is startling. Lucina backs away instinctively.

“Sorry,” Severa whispers, “do you not like it?”

“It’s just…” Lucina’s chest heaves. “I’ve never…kissed anyone…”

“Do you want to do it more?”

“Very much, please.”

Severa takes Lucina’s face in her hands and kisses her again, deeply and passionately, trying to channel every ounce of carnal adolescent desperation into the single act. Lucina responds in kind, parting her lips slightly and trying to press herself tighter against Severa. Severa breaks the kiss, pulling their mouths apart and leaving a strand of saliva trailing between her lips and Lucina’s gaping mouth. The recipient of the kiss is dazed, almost dreamlike.

Severa wipes her lips and kisses Lucina again before trailing her lips down her cheek and then tracing her tongue along Lucina’s jawline. She sinks her teeth into Lucina’s neck and Lucina moans.

“Shhh,” Severa pulls away, hushes her, then dives into her neck again. “Quiet,” she whispers, her voice low and husky.

“Mmn…” Lucina mumbles, gripping the small of Severa’s back and pulling her tighter.

“I said _shhh_ ,” Severa clamps a hand over Lucina’s mouth and nips at her collarbone. “I said shut up.”

Lucina traces the ridge of Severa’s spine through the thin, soft fabric of her t-shirt, bringing her hand up to cup the back of her head. She tugs Severa back from her neck and takes the initiative to kiss her before readjusting and making use of her height advantage to grasp the blanket and tug it over their heads, plunging them into a soft void of lips and sheets and tongues and pillows.


	10. Chapter 10

Lucina wakes first, with Severa curled against her, their limbs tangled in a mess of hair and disheveled clothing. Severa is in a tight ball, her head on Lucina’s chest and one arm tight around Lucina’s stomach, the other awkwardly sticking between them, the wrist brace scratchy against Lucina’s skin. Lucina shifts, readjusting to wrap and arm around Severa’s shoulder.

Her mouth still feels gummy, thick with the taste of Severa, with woodsmoke and cola. She licks her dry lips and cranes her neck, looking for her water bottle.

The sun streams through slats in the blinds, casting bars of thin yellow light across her messy room, one such light illuminating her calendar.

What a way to start a birthday.

Severa lets out a whimper and curls closer, an instinctive reaction to Lucina pulling away to grab her water, and Lucina smiles and kisses her on the cheek. “It’s okay,” she whispers. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She settles back under the covers and watches the slow rise and fall of Severa’s chest, though her peaceful expression is somewhat marred by her half-open mouth and the drool pooling on Lucina’s chest. Lucina smiles and wipes her lips. Gross, but a small price to pay, she decides.

Severa murmurs something incoherent and shifts, pressing her lips weakly into Lucina’s neck before falling back asleep.

Lucina feels the way she assumes birds must, or maybe clouds – light, airy, like music is running through her veins, like her every breath is charged with lightning.

Her high spirits crash back down through the roof and tunnel into the floor when there comes a knock at her door. She freezes.

Another knock, then the door opens.

“Lucina, have you seen my-“ Chrom is halfway through his sentence before he looks up. The scene is frozen still – Chrom, one foot through the door, one hand still on the doorknob, and Lucina, half-propped up in bed, a sleeping girl on her chest. It would probably look less damning if it weren’t for the dark purple bruises along her collarbone.

 

 

“Mom and Dad are _pissed_ ,” Morgan says with some amusement as he slides into a seat across the dining room table from Lucina, who’s resting her head in her hands.

She looks up, her face tinged with shame and embarrassment. “I really didn’t think they’d be this upset about it…”

“About what?”

“About…me…”

Morgan gapes, incredulous. “Lucina, they aren’t upset about _that!_ I think they’d be upset _regardless_ of who they found in your bed. But…you have to admit, it does look pretty bad.”

“Does it?” Lucina winces.

“They’re gonna think the only reason you’ve been pushing for Severa to stay here is because you and her are-“

“Don’t say it,” Lucina cuts him off. “Besides, that’s not true! You know it isn’t!”

“Oh, _I_ know that,” Morgan replies. “But it’s gonna take some convincing for them. It really does look like you’ve just been having a month-long sleepover with your girlfriend.”

“She’s _not_ my girlfriend!” Lucina protests.

Morgan raises his eyebrows then laughs. “Yeah, sure, Luce. And those hickeys are from…?”

Lucina blushes and winces, trying in vain to tug the collar of her shirt higher. “Is it noticeable?”

“I can’t _not_ see it,” Morgan laughs. “God, it’s like you were fucking a piranha!”

Lucina’s blush consumed her entire face. “We weren’t…doing…that. It was just kissing. Anyway, now I’m worried Mom and Dad are going to kick Severa out. Or worse, send her back to the orphanage.”

“Have you talked to Mom and Dad about…” Morgan gestures vaguely. “All that?”

Lucina shakes her head. “No, I…I didn’t want to talk about it without Severa’s permission.”

“How’s she doing, by the way?”

Lucina folds her arms on the table and slumps, burying her face in her arms. “I don’t know. She hasn’t left her room all morning, but I’m _sure_ she can hear Mom and Dad arguing.”

“Luce, you really need to figure out what you’re doing with this girl. She can’t just live in our guest room forever, y’know?”

“I know!” Lucina groans. “I know! Mom told me, Dad told me, I certainly don’t need _you_ telling me!”

As if on cue, Robin and Chrom enter the dining room and Lucina’s mood goes from bad to worse. She stands up abruptly, already on the defensive. “Dad, I can ex-“

He holds a hand up to silence her. “Lucina…” There’s disappointment tinged in his voice, but more than anything else he seems frustrated. It was an inevitability, something like this happening. Something that shifts Severa from the ‘rude houseguest’ category to the ‘problem’ category.

“I’m sorry,” Lucina tries to apologize. “I…”

“Lucina, you _know_ she can’t stay here,” Robin says, resting a hand on her husband’s arm. “It was one thing when she was still healing from her injuries, but…it’s time for us to find a place for her to go.”

Lucina feels frustration boiling up inside her. “What, that’s it? You’re just going to kick her out because we kissed?”

“Lucina,” Robin says softly, with pity.

Chrom’s voice is considerably firmer. “No, we’re finding a place for her to stay because we aren’t equipped to take care of her, and you and her being…a thing simply complicates matters. She needs help, Lucina, you _have_ to see that.”

“She’s…she’s doing better!” Lucina protests. “Isn’t she?” She is not.

“Lucina, I know she’s your friend, and you care about her, but she can’t stay here.” The words sound somehow harsher coming from Chrom than from Robin, like admonishment rather than reasoning.

“Dad, _please_ -“

“No, Lucina,” he says firmly. “This…listen to yourself. This isn’t one of your special interest projects, okay? This isn’t like the cat; this is a human being we’re talking about!”

“Please,” Lucina feels her voice crack. “Please, Dad, just…just a little more time. She just…she just needs some more time.”

“How much time?” Chrom frowns. “It’s been more than a month. Two? Three? A year? How long do you expect this to go on?”

Robin rests a hand on Chrom’s arm, stilling him, but directing her attention to Lucina. “Honey, you’re being selfish. Severa needs help, and by keeping her here you’re stopping her from getting that help.”

 

 

The voices filter up the stairwell, through the hall and slipping under the crack of Severa’s door. She can’t pick out words, but she can identify voices; Lucina’s broken pleas, Chrom’s harshness, Robin’s soft mediation. Severa curls up in her bed, tugs the blanket over her head, and squeezes herself tightly. She knows it’s her fault – of course it is. It always is. She should have left when her concussion healed, when her ribs healed, she should have left _any time_ , even the day after Lucina broke her out of the hospital.

What right did she have to intrude on these people’s lives? It was her own selfish desire for a family, for belonging. But it was foolish to assume anyone would want her. This is how it always went, every time.

She remembers being twelve, curled up under a blanket, arms clamped over her head as her foster parents argued about turning her over to social services. She had beaten up her foster brother for saying mean things about her mother. It had been a stupid, childish fight, just like everything Severa did. Stupid and childish.

She remembers being thirteen, standing in the debris of a shattered glass coffee table, bleeding, listening to harsh voices screaming at her, calling her worthless, calling her awful.

She remembers being fourteen, unwilling to venture out of her room to sit at the table with the other children, with her foster siblings – the ‘real’ children. She remembers being forgotten about – never included, never invited. She would miss meals and have to scrounge her own food, much to the irritation of her foster parents.

And then she stops remembering, because there’s nothing else. There’s the orphanage, her only constant. Always there, always waiting for her when the brief glimpses of family fade away.

She curls tighter against herself and can feel her heart humming against her ribcage. It had just been a matter of time anyway. It was always like this, and it scarcely lasted longer.

 

 

Lucina sits on Severa’s bedside and rests a gentle hand on the lump of blanket. “You in there?”

“Go away.”

Lucina sighs. “It’s…it’s okay, Severa. My parents decided to let you stay until the end of the school year. It’s only another month, but…it’s something. I’m sorry.”

The blanket lump is silent. Then a head emerges. She sits up and shifts to sit at Lucina’s side though her feet are still on the bed. She hugs her knees in close to her chest. She’s still in her pajamas, even though it’s well past noon.

“Uh…well, my parents and Morgan and I are going out for the evening, and we won’t be back until later. We’re getting dinner then doing some stuff for my birthday. Um…” Lucina purses her lips. “There’s an open invitation if you wanna come. Some friends from school are going to be there, so it’s not just a family thing.”

Severa shakes her head. “I…I don’t want to make things worse for you.”

Lucina laughs. “Honestly, this is par for the course. Between me and Morgan, my parents are _always_ up in arms about something.”

Severa buries her face in her knees and hugs her legs closer. “It’s…it’s okay. I’ll just stay here.”

“Okay. Call me if you need anything, alright?” Lucina gives her shoulder a light squeeze and kisses the crown of her head before leaving.

 

-

 

Even despite having the entire house to herself, she remains shut up in her room for most of the evening. She alternates between reading and sleeping, and distantly considers taking a bath. Her hair isn’t going to like a day without proper care, but her weariness takes priority. The sun sets, her window shifting from the hazy blue of afternoon to a glowing orange that lights her room with sharp shadows and flickering light, and then the room is bathed in the deep, dusky red of twilight. It isn’t until she’s incapable of parsing the words on the pages of her book that she finally gets up, rubs her eyes, and climbs out of bed.

The house feels strangely still, almost uncomfortably quiet. She had grown used to not being alone. She expected something – Chrom working in the garage, Robin humming as she tottered around the house, music drifting from Lucina’s room, Morgan watching TV. Instead the house was silent.

She slips out of her room, padding softly on the carpet, her bare feet sinking into the soft plush as she makes her way to the bathroom. She washes her face, changes the bandages on her forearms and adjusts her wrist brace, then ventures back out into the soft, dark stillness. She makes her way down to the kitchen. The living room is dark, as is the kitchen, with only the barest hints of red twilight filtering through the window. She opens the fridge and sifts through leftovers. They had ordered takeout the night before, so she opts to reheat some of that. The microwave hums and she leans on the counter, eyes half-lidded with weariness.

A sound draws her attention. A crunch, like something heavy shifting. She frowns.

The microwave dings and she withdraws the paper takeout box. She stirs her noodles and takes a cautious bite. She’s still eating as she walks into the living room and finds a figure hunched in front of the entertainment center.

She chews, then swallows.

“Who the fuck are you?”

The figure snaps upright and turns, and Severa’s eyes widen. It’s a man, presumably, dressed in dark clothing, an open bag slung over his shoulder, into which he was previously shoveling the Lowells’ expensive electronics. He’s wearing a mask, but his eyes widen to match Severa’s.

She pieces together what’s happening in an instant – she’s done her own fair share of thieving enough to recognize it. The house makes sense for a target – no cars in the driveway, lights off, quiet neighborhood with no foot traffic. Presumably he hadn’t been counting on a houseguest.

Severa reacts quicker than the burglar, dropping her takeout and lunging for the phone. He responds quickly, dropping his bag and reaching for her.

He has an obvious size advantage. He slams into her, knocking her away from the phone and sending her careening backwards. She stumbles on the coffee table and falls into it with a sickening crunch as one of the legs gives way. The thief yanks the phone out of the wall, the cord splitting in a spark of white electricity.

Severa sweeps her legs out, her bare feet connecting with his shins. It’s like she’s kicking a brick wall. She struggles to push herself off the coffee table and scramble backwards, but she manages to push herself back and flop onto the carpet. Her tailbone smarts but she leaps to her feet, curling her hands into fists.

“Just leave, moron!” she snarls. It’s almost laughable, her putting her fists up as if to defend herself. He’s dressed for a fight – heavy combat boots, padded clothing. A monster, compared to Severa in her pajamas, and Severa isn’t even wearing a bra.

He hits her, hard. A fist collides with her cheek and she crumples to the ground in pain. She weakly pushes herself up, her wrist still weak and shaky. She yells and charges, slamming into him with the full force of her body. He staggers backwards and hits into the entertainment center. The TV hits the carpet with a crunch and Severa winces but continues her assault, making use of her small frame to pull back and hit the man. “Leave! Just go!”

He hits her again, this time a knee to her stomach, and she doubles over, fighting the urge to vomit. She looks up and growls.

Let it never be said that Severa is one to back down from a fight. She grabs a broken leg from the coffee table and hits the man, using it like a battering weapon until he yanks it from her grip and throws it aside. In anger he grabs her braced wrist and twists, and Severa hears a nauseating crack accompanied by stabbing pain. She cries out and kicks at the man’s groin, using her free hand to grasp her wrist. “Fucker!” she swears, blinking back tears.

A flash of silver in the darkness, and Severa widens her eyes.

Contrary to popular rumor, Severa had never actually been on the business end of a knife. She had, as the rumors confirmed, stabbed someone, but it had been in self-defense. She had been trying to run away, yet again, and decided in a run-down bus station bathroom that a fourteen-year-old girl probably belonged in school, rather than stabbing a grown man.

So as the burglar pulls a knife, she feels panic set in. She stumbles backwards, her fists unfolding into hands raised in surrender. “H-hey, w-“

Before she can finish her sentence the man hits her again and she drops to the ground, her head sparking with pain. She tastes copper from biting her tongue, and through a painful haze she watches the man grab his bag and yank open the front door, sprinting off into the night.

She groans, rolling onto her back and staring at the ceiling, dizzy and nauseous. She lifts her injured wrist and stares with detachment before slumping back to the ground, surrounded by the ruins of the living room.

She sits up after a while, her head aching and her entire body sore. She blinks and looks around at the mess the fight made – the TV is facedown on the carpet, surrounded by shattered glass. The coffee table is smashed in, wood fragments scattered around the carpet, and the phone is laying in a crumpled pile by the wall. The entertainment center itself fared poorly, with large sections broken in, and, more concerning – empty. To brace herself to stand, Severa presses her hands into the carpet, and her good hand goes directly into her dropped dinner, now lukewarm. Severa groans and pushes herself to her feet. As if her day could get any worse.

She sets to work quickly, or as quickly as she can with her injured hand. She sweeps the coffee table debris into a pile for disposal and does her best to pick broken glass out of the carpet. By the end of that process, a pile of shards is resting on the entertainment center and her hands are crisscrossed with red gashes, though none are too bad. She wipes the blood on her shirt, smearing a stain of red over the fishing tournament logo.

It’s strange, she thinks, tidying the rest of the living room. She’s most at her element in a crisis – she’s so unequipped for the mundanities of daily life, but give her an emergency and she knows how to react immediately. She cleans the cuts on her hands in the kitchen sink, disinfects them, and wraps them in bandages from the upstairs bathroom. She’s in the process of determining how exactly to flip the TV back up when the crunch of gravel in the driveway reminds her of the houses’ occupants.

 _Fuck_.

 

 

Severa knows it looks bad. She’s standing in a living room that’s still a disaster, despite her best efforts, with a blood-smeared shirt, in front of a very expensive broken TV and a pile of conspicuously absent items. The four family members stare in slack-jawed horror, gazing with wide eyes at the scene before them. The outright disaster their houseguest has wrought.

“W-wait, I can-“ Severa holds up her hands, trying to defend herself.

“What did you _DO?_ ” Chrom hollers, crossing the living room.

“I-I-I can explain!” Severa stammers, cowering in the man’s presence. “It was-“

“There’s nothing to explain,” Chrom glowers. “Enough! Enough of this!”

“P-please,” Severa feels tears sting her eyes. “Please, I can, I can explain, I…I can-“

Chrom shakes his head. “No. I’ve had enough. Tomorrow. I’m calling the orphanage _tomorrow_ , and the only reason I’m not calling right this instant is because it’s nearly midnight.”

Lucina steps in to protest. “Dad!”

Severa pleads, her bloody hands grasping Chrom’s shirt with desperation. “P-please, I…I’ll pay for it, I can…I’ll-“

Chrom remains firm. “I’ve had enough of the two of you. Lucina, help me clean this up. Severa, go to your room. You’ve done enough damage here tonight.”

Lucina nods somberly and Severa stumbles backwards, her eyes flooding with tears. “N-no, I…I don’t…I…”

Chrom points at the stairs.

The cleanup operation takes less time than expected, with the combined effort of Chrom, Morgan, Lucina, and Robin. By the time Lucina is washing her hands and getting ready for bed, it’s only a little past midnight. Lucina feels guilt pressing down on her shoulders and nervousness building in her gut. She had never meant for any of this to happen, and now…her father was furious, and Severa was…what _was_ Severa?

Chrom hadn’t even listened to her before shuffling her aside, but what explanation could she possibly give? What excuse? Lucina runs the sink and plunges her face into cold water. Whatever the future may hold, it’s for Tomorrow-Lucina. Now she is tired, drained, and altogether too anxious to handle whatever is happening. She takes aspirin and lays down in her bed, trying to hush her thoughts long enough to sleep.


	11. Chapter 11

Lucina knocks on Severa’s door once, twice, three times. “Sev? It’s me,” she whispers softly against the wooden doorframe. She knocks again. “Sev?”

The hallway is dark – the clock had read a little past two by the time Lucina got up and decided to check on Severa. On bad days, Lucina had grown used to Severa slipping into her bed, but this time, on this worst of days…nothing.

“Sev?”

Lucina jiggles the door before entering, one last warning before cracking the door and slipping inside.

It’s immediately obvious that something is wrong. There’s a chill drifting through the room, and even in the darkness Lucina can tell. She hits the lightswitch in a rush of anxiety.

Severa’s futon is folded back up, and upon it sits her borrowed clothing and the new clothing Lucina’s mother had bought her. Her sneakers, too, are set at the foot of the futon. The dresser is empty, and any sign that the room is occupied is gone. The only motion are the curtains in the breeze, drifting by the open window.

“Severa!” Lucina cries out, rushing to the window. From the open window is a short drop to a section of roof, then less than ten feet to the grass below. A short and easy drop, and one Lucina herself had been guilty of making when sneaking out in the past. She whirls around, leaning back against the window frame and trying to stop herself from panicking.

She looks over the room again, looking for anything, any trace or indication of Severa’s destination. The folded clothes, the empty dresser. Then Lucina spies it.

A book – Severa’s book - resting on top of the dresser, with a folded triangle of paper atop it.

Lucina’s breath falters and her heart races. She can barely grasp the paper, so shaky are her hands. She unfolds it slowly, dreadfully.

It’s a simple note, scrawled in a shaky, trembling script, barely legible as the paper is pockmarked with smudges where it had been wet.

_I’m sorry._

Lucina holds the note in trembling hands, with gentle reverence. She blinks and is surprised to find herself crying. She grabs the book off the bookcase and clutches it to her chest. _Severa_ …

Lucina’s fear gives way to panic. She reacts automatically, without thinking, paying no heed to hour or noise, no heed to anything but her need to find Severa. She throws the book in her messenger bag and sprints down the stairs, two at a time. Without stopping to put her shoes on or change out of her pajamas she bolts out the door, leaving it swinging open on its hinges. Her feet hit grass and she sprints, her legs carrying her with all of the might and power of her years on the track team.

Her muscles burn but she does not stop, even as the asphalt and concrete scrape her bare soles, even as she rounds sharps bends in the road.

She cries out into the night, her voice echoing off streetlamps, bouncing off telephone poles, dissipating over the trees and melding into the inky black sky.

Severa.

She cries the name until she’s gasping for breath, until she’s hoarse, until she buckles over, coughing and sputtering against the road’s guardrail. She lets herself rest only a moment before returning to her task.

Her mind races, each turn calling into question her decision. _Where? She could be anywhere. She could be heading for the orphanage, or the school, or…_

It hits her. The cemetery. Lucina bolts with renewed vigor, vaulting over a guardrail and tumbling through the woods, hellbent on her shortcut to the church. Down main street, past the truss bridge, up the hill. A walk she and Severa had taken before, though Severa did not let them stop at the cemetery.

Lucina sprints, her feet pounding against the ground, her journey painfully slow. Her head races with possibility. She should have grabbed a bike. She should have put on her shoes. Anything that would give her an edge as she careered with reckless abandon into the dark night. Ahead, in the inky curtain of AM sky, stars twinkled.

 

 

The truss bridge over the river gorge is unnamed, but a town landmark – it’s old, almost as old as the town itself, and has been painted and repainted, weathered all manner of storms, endured reconstruction and rebuilding and repair, and the old iron struts glow a soft greenish tint in the moonlight.

It’s almost a full moon, tonight, and the white light sparkles on the swirling current of the river, far below. It’s a hundred-foot drop to the river, bordered on either side by sharp, rocky cliffs, and the river itself is dotted with jagged boulders. It’s beautiful, even in the moonlight – the swirling currents of white foam mingling with whirlpools, the moon’s reflection warped and twisted in the flowing water.

A voice shattered Severa’s gaze.

“Severa!”

Severa looks up, blinking back her filter of tears. Her chest caves into itself and she can barely choke out a sob.

“P-please, Lucina,” she begs. “Please, s-stay away.”

“Severa,” Lucina breathes, crossing the threshold of the bridge and making her way towards Severa’s position along the railing.

“Please,” Severa cries, weakly collapsing on the rail. “Please don’t make this any harder than it needs to be.”

Tears spill down Lucina’s cheeks and she leaps the barrier between the road and the walkway, landing weakly a few paces from Severa.

Severa shakes her head, each motion bringing fresh pain to her bruised cheek. “Go away, L-Lucina,” she whimpers. “Just go h-h-home…”

“Severa,” Lucina sobs, collapsing in exhaustion at her side.

Severa’s on the wrong side of the railing, her bare feet dangling from the narrow strip of walkway separating the railing from the plunge into the river gorge below. Her arms are weakly draped over the railing, her hands smearing red on the green iron. “Just…” Severa chokes out the words, each motion of her chest paining her, each second of gripping the rail sending pain through her wrist. “Just go…”

“No,” Lucina protests, reaching out to grasp Severa’s hand. “I’m…I’m not leaving you!”

Severa coughs weakly, more of a sputter than anything. “I just…I can’t…” She blinks and tears roll down her face, dripping into the void below. “I can’t…”

“Please,” Lucina begs, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Please, Severa…I…I love you…”

Severa shakes her head. “D-don’t say that. Please d-don't s-say that. You...you d-don’t.”

“I do!” Lucina shouts defiantly, her tears stopped even if just for a moment. “I do love you!”

“No,” Severa cries. “No one does.” Her voice cracks. “I…I just don’t want it to hurt anymore.”

Lucina grasps her shirt firmly and tugs, helping Severa weakly climb the railing back to the proper side of the bridge. Severa falls to her knees, sobbing. No, not sobbing – wailing, crying with all her heart, with all the power of her lungs. Lucina holds her as she cries, letting her pour it all out; everything, all the pain and fear and hurt and despair, everything pushed from her lungs in a stream of tears and gasping breaths, loud sobs lost to the wind and the rush of water far below. Severa cries and cries, cries until her lungs give out and her throat grows hoarse and raw, and she finally collapses weakly into Lucina’s arms, unable to do any more than shudder and gasp for breath.

Lucina holds her, shushes her, strokes her hair, whispering calm assurances that everything will be okay. That Severa is safe, that she’s okay. She kisses her, too – gently, on the top of her head or her brow, or she kisses the tears from her eyelashes, cooing to her and rocking her softly. Severa’s sobs quiet from a heartbreaking wail to a whimper, to a shudder, and then to nothing. Silence, as she sits in Lucina’s arms, resting. Her body still spasms occasionally, but Lucina continues to hold her tight.

 

 

Severa rocks her bare feet back and forth, watching them swing in the darkness. The river is still below, but somehow it seems less menacing now, less hungry. The water swirls, far below her feet.

Lucina is at her side, her feet also dangling off the bridge, and they both lean back, silent but together. Lucina still holds her hand – her good one, that is. Her injured wrist hangs at her side, the pain reduced to a dull ache.

It’s a quiet moment, the only sound the distant hooting of owls and the rustle of wind in the leaves and the current of the river. Severa is the first to speak, her gaze fixed on the river.

“It’s…it’s today, you know.”

“Hm?” Lucina looks up, startled.

“The day my mom died. Seven years ago, today.” Severa picks at a splinter of wood and tosses it into the river. “April 21st.”

“I’m sorry.” Lucina isn’t sure what to say, so she says nothing – she waits for Severa to continue or to fall silent.

“I was nine when she got sick. I…I still remember sitting in the living room. We were watching some stupid bullshit show, I don’t know. Some cartoon. And she started coughing, and she couldn’t seem to stop. She tried not to show me, but by the time she finally finished coughing her hands were bloody.”

Lucina nods, still silent. She stares at the river, trying to figure out what Severa is staring at – if she’s fixed on some point in the river, or if she’s just staring into space, conjuring the images of memory in the void before her.

“It was a few months before she had to be moved to the hospital. She was all I ever had, so…I just stayed with her at the hospital. They let me sleep in the kid’s area, and I would eat the shitty cafeteria food, and sit by mom’s bed.” Her breathing becomes slow and labored, and she takes a moment before speaking again.

“She would always read to me. Even before she got sick, she and I would read together. Everything – novels, magazines, even stuff for school. I just…I loved hearing her voice, and I think she just liked spending the time with me. So…when she got sick, I would bring her books to read me. It was mostly just kid stuff – you know, those dumb paperback series and stuff. And she would read to me, even though it made her cough.”

Severa blinks and a tear tracks down her cheek. “It…it got hard…” She winces and takes a breath. “She…it got hard for her to see the words, and speaking was rough on her. So…so I started reading to her.” Severa shakes her head, and tears spill openly, though she keeps herself from crying.

“I read my books, for a bit, but then I started reading some of her favorites. Ones I could barely understand – the words were big, and I’d struggle through a lot of them, but…but I knew they were her favorites, and I couldn’t…” She squeezes Lucina’s hand. “I just couldn’t give up.”

“That one – _Tales of the Faith_ War - was her favorite. She knew it by heart,” Severa says, pointing to Lucina’s bag. “She loved all the characters - Tailtiu was her favorite. She always admired her, and how she was willing to do anything for her daughter. It…it’s not a happy story, but…I read it to her so many times…enough that I started to know it just as well as her. I think…I think it was just easier for me to live in a fantasy world than to deal with my own.”

Severa takes a ragged breath and lets out a whimper. “I kept reading to her, even when she couldn’t hear very well, even when she couldn’t keep herself awake. T-towards the end, I…I would come in and read, and she wouldn’t even wake up anymore. But I would still do it. The whole time. It was…nineteen months.”

Lucina rubs a thumb over Severa’s knuckle.

“I still remember the social services woman talking to me, explaining that I’d be moved into the foster care system. I…” Severa laughs harshly, tears painting her lips and spilling from her chin. “I was so mad. I refused to. My…my mommy was gonna take care of me. She was going to get better.”

Severa is quiet again, for some time. She wipes her eyes and blows her nose on the bottom hem of her pajama shirt.

“She was buried on a Saturday. It was sunny and warm, and I don’t even remember the words the preacher was saying. All I could do was stare at the casket.”

She stops speaking, and the only sound from her is muffled sniffs.

“I’m sorry,” Lucina says at last, venturing to speak. What else was there to say?

Severa slumps against her shoulder and closes her eyes. She shakes her head. “I’m…I’m sorry, Lucina. I…I ruined your life. I fucked up your family because I was jealous, and, and, and-“

Lucina takes her cheeks in her hands and kisses her deeply. “I told you, Severa. I love you. It’s been…it’s been…” she sighs. “It’s been a ride. But…I want you to be happy, and I want you to be comfortable. My family might not be right for you, but…someone will be. I promise. And I promise I won’t let you go until we figure out who that is, okay?”

Severa nods and burrows herself into Lucina’s shoulder.


	12. Chapter 12

Severa walks carefully, her pristine black boots treading lightly across the blades of well-manicured grass. They’re new boots – they still smell like the shoe store. The sun shines down brightly from the blue sky. It’s a cloudless morning, with the sort of humidity that indicates a day that will be unpleasantly sweltering by mid-afternoon.

Even so, Severa is dressed in her full regalia, opting for style rather than utility. She holds a bundle of flowers in her arms.

She stops her trek, her boots coming to a rest in the shade of a headstone. She kneels reverently, placing the flowers against the stone, neatening the petals and clearing away any weeds that had cropped up in the intervening time.

She stands, arms wrapped around her waist.

“Hey, mom.”

The only reply is the light breeze, the rustle of leaves in the trees bordering the plot of land.

“Sorry I haven’t been by recently. It’s been…It’s been kind of a crazy year.”

She stands up straighter, adjusting her skirt. She takes a breath.

“Uh…Lucina and I are still dating. One year, coming up later this month. We’re going to prom, so I have to take her dress shopping to make sure she doesn’t pick the ugliest thing in the store.” Severa laughs at her own joke.

“She’s…she’s graduating this month. She’s going to one of those fancy universities in the city, but she promised to come back and visit every weekend. I…well, I got held back last year so I won’t be graduating quite yet, but…” she nods. “I’m getting there. I’m thinking of going to community college. I don’t know what I want to study, but I’m thinking literature.” She laughs again. “Looks like all those books were good for something, huh?”

She takes a breath and is surprised to find it painful. She wipes the corner of her eye.

“Oh, and good news. I finally got adopted.” She wipes her eyes again. “Your old friend Sumia…well, she...I didn’t realize that book you loved so much was a gift from her, until her daughter saw me reading it. She was so excited, and said that no one reads such trashy stuff except her mom and her mom’s friends.” Severa laughs. “So, uh…the paperwork went through last winter, and I’ve been living with them.”

“Cynthia and I still butt heads a lot, but…she’s not so bad. She’s going to university on a track scholarship, so I’ll have the house to myself next year.” She blinks and recomposes herself. “Um…Sumia is really great. She’s just…she’s so kind, and patient, and she doesn’t get mad at me even when I’m having episodes, and…” Another laugh punctuates her sentence. “And she lets me sleep with her when my night terrors get real bad, even though I’m eighteen.”

Severa pauses, letting the wind ruffle her hair, and she straightens one scarlet tail.

“She’s been paying for me to see doctors and stuff, and I’ve been going to therapy. I don’t…I don’t really like it, but…but sometimes Lucina comes with me, and that makes talking a lot easier.” She sniffles and wipes her nose on her sleeve. She’s still wearing a wrist brace, though this time it’s black, and removable so she can wash her hands and perform some tasks. Her wrist still aches, and the bones never quite set properly after their second fracture, but Cynthia and Lucina have taken to sticking stickers all over the brace. A little moon sticker is on the back of her hand, encircled by hearts.

“I think you’d really like Lucina,” Severa continues. “She’s just…she’s so amazing, and she...” She laughs again, through her tears. “She reminds me of Seliph.” She laughs again and wipes her eyes. “Stupid book,” she mutters through her pained smile. “Um…Sumia and Lucina’s dad are good friends, so we have get-togethers and stuff, and…yesterday we had a big cookout for Luci’s birthday, so…that was fun. It’s nice to see them still, even if Chrom doesn’t really like me.” She means it in jest, but can’t make herself laugh.

Her expression darkens and she gasps, a sob falling from her lips. “I…I miss you, mom. E-Every day without you hurts.” she purses her lips and stutters, whimpering. “It hurts so much. I…” She fumbles for the words as tears spill down her cheeks. She kneels in the grass.

“I’m not okay. I know I’m not, and…and I don’t know if I will be. But…but I’m trying so hard, mom.” She wipes her eyes and whimpers again. “I’m trying so hard to be better.” She chokes out a gasp. “I…I love you, mom. I’ll…I’ll come by later, okay? I…” She stands, wiping her eyes. “I love you.”

She treks back through the cemetery slowly, a filter of tears blurring her eyes and making walking difficult. She makes her way back, weaving between headstones and flower bushes and trees, and finally she reaches the church parking lot. There’s a single car parked there, with a figure leaning against it, silhouetted in the bright morning sun.

Severa’s boots crunch on the gravel as she makes her way towards the figure. She throws her arms around Lucina and clings to her tightly.

“Are you okay?” Lucina asks, kissing her cheeks, then her brow, then her lips.

Severa nods, sniffling. “Y-yeah. I…I think I’m okay.” She smiles.  

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> If you like my writing, you can commission me! You can contact me at cowboysneep@gmail.com or shoot me a DM at lucisevofficial.tumblr.com to discuss.


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